


Shallow Grave

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, HLV fix-it, Infidelity, M/M, Moriarty is Alive, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining!Sherlock, Romance, Set after His Last Vow, Unrequited Love, post series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:11:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts as Sherlock's plane is taking off at the end of <i>His Last Vow</i>. When he finds out that Moriarty is alive and that he's being recalled from his mission, Sherlock decides that he should have told John how he felt before he left. So he walks off the plane and kisses him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shallow Grave

**Shallow Grave**

 

The January air has already blown the warmth of John’s fingers from my hand as the door of the plane is secured by the agent playing the role of gaoler/flight attendant in this vaguely nightmarish drama. 

I’m directed to a seat with a minimum of exchanged words, told to buckle myself in. Unlike the dreary wait on a commercial flight, we will be taking off in a minute or two. Less time to brood, at any rate. In the moments where I can feel anything, it’s like shock all over again – the spiking pain, the internal chaos and panic, the sense of helpless futility. The rest of the time I just feel numb. I spent six days in the holding cells in the basement of the MI6 building, with sporadic visits by my brother. I asked to see John and was told that I couldn’t. He’s been told nothing, I presume. (Could he see it on my face? Everything I didn’t say?) I said _Six months, my brother estimates_ and he said, _And then what?_ To which I’d responded rhetorically, _Who knows?_ Does he know that I know I’m not coming back? That he’ll never see me again? 

My throat tightens despite myself, despite the agent doing his best to ignore my very existence, feigning boredom behind the pages of a nondescript magazine. (It’s not real; he’s never escorted someone as well known as me before and he’s overly aware of it, his sense of self-importance exaggerated at the moment. Never mind. Don’t care. Focus. John.) Another spike of pain. I still haven’t quite grasped that I won’t be seeing him again. If even Mycroft feels so grimly certain that I won’t survive, then the odds are depressingly low, indeed. I clench my fist as though trying to retain momentary warmth of John’s hand, but it’s long gone. He’s long gone. Might as well be. I’ll never see him again. I repeat the words to myself, as though repetition will force away the disbelief, the instinctive denial: _No. I have to see him again. This can’t be the end._

But it is. And anyway, did I ever have him back in the first place? (Did I ever have him?) Mycroft’s file said that John was in a relationship. Nurse at his clinic: dull, predictable, boring. I’d been on the verge of dismissing it. Clearly he was just bored without me. But then I saw Mycroft’s addendum that John had been seen purchasing a ring. There was a photo, just in case I didn’t believe it. I knew she would be there at the restaurant, and she was. In retrospect, I should have planned my revelation much more carefully. Done it sometime when he was alone. I hadn’t cared all that much at the time that she was there – I’d just wanted to see John, as quickly as possible. It was a disaster, and in retrospect, I wished I’d spoken to him alone, disaster or otherwise, and said the things I should have said then. That it wasn’t just about stopping Moriarty. That he’d been in danger, that he would have died if I hadn’t made him and everyone else believe that I was dead. I’d told him later, of course, but I should have seen that hearing that would have been more important to him at the time. Once the media hubbub had died down, I’d told him everything, from the day of the jump. But this… I’ve never been good at saying the right thing at the right time. 

And what good would it have done, anyway, at any point? Mary was clearly there to stay. Is. Mary _is_ clearly here to stay. (Here? There. I’m the one leaving, aren’t I.) If I had walked into that restaurant and announced for all to hear that I had come for John Watson and wasn’t leaving without him, and possibly tacked on some hopelessly romantic nonsense straight from a terrible Hollywood film, it’s not as though he wouldn’t have still proposed. I interrupted it and he still did. I came back from the seeming dead and that wasn’t enough to sway him. No: what I feel exists only on my side. Of that, I am more than certain. The possibility exists – has always existed – but not by the light of day. Only when one squints at a side angle, dismisses an impossible amount of reality first. Maybe while under the influence, in a moment of carelessness. But he would never allow himself to consciously feel that way for me. Or perhaps it’s not a question of allowing: perhaps John really does know what he wants, and has it. Perhaps it’s right there beside him, clutching his arm in an overly-bright red coat, bleached hair blowing untidily in the wind. The only difference it would have ever made if I’d said something overt would have been to make our friendship strained and awkward. 

I saw it again on his face just now, the warning. He knows. Some part of him surely knows. He doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want to know it. I’ve never said it point blank, but there have been signs that even he should have been able to deduce by now. Times when I didn’t quite work hard enough to hide it. At his wedding, just before I left. I know he saw it. I plainly saw the information register in his eyes before he awkwardly dropped his gaze and allowed himself to be pulled away to dance with his new wife. Immediately distracting himself, putting physical (and emotional) distance between us. And suddenly the room had seemed simultaneously too full and too empty. No reason to stay, so I’d left. He left first, though. 

(I suppose he could argue that I left first. But I came back. And he still chose her.)

A lesser man would be hurt, perhaps, that he’d taken back the wife who shot his best friend. Then again, I told him to. (How could he not have seen that I was pointing out the very thing that he’s always liked about _me_ , not her? Couldn’t precisely say _that_ in front of Mary, could I? Only possible explanation of all of the information given: he doesn’t want to know. 

At least I had the sense to do what I hadn’t thought to do for our reunion: ask for a moment alone with him. Not properly alone, but at least out of earshot. It was better than nothing. I wish I could have seen him while I was being held by the MI6, just him and I, alone. I would have told him why I shot Magnussen. I would have said, plainly for once, that it was for him. Would have explained away the disbelief on his face, answer the _Why_ he demanded afterward. I knew I would either be going to prison or to Serbia. What could it have hurt? I still can’t decide if I was right to retract it at the last minute, there on the tarmac. I wanted to say it. Was finally going to. What was there to lose? But I could still see it there on his face: he steeled himself visibly, parts of his face closing like windows shuttering. He still doesn’t want to know. So, at the last second, I retracted it, swallowed back the unsaid words, and made him laugh instead. It’s almost a decent consolation prize, having had the chance to see him laugh one last time. 

(Oh, John.) I turn my face toward the window and attempt to master it, keep my eyes dry. (It’s only partially successful.) It hurts more than Mary’s bullet did, in strangely parallel ways. Hard to breathe around it. Goodbye, John. I’m taking myself out of the triangle, only it was never really a triangle, was it? Just you and your wife, and there, off to the side, me. One complication eliminated. (But you will miss me a little, won’t you? I’m your best friend.) 

(It doesn’t matter what I am, or was. It’s over. I’m not coming back this time.) 

Press my forehead to the glass as the plane takes off. It’s real. It’s happening. England and John are already two thousand feet below and disappearing rapidly, falling away beneath me. Out the window, all I can see is the microscopic red dot of Mary’s coat. 

***

An electronic beeping disturbs my miserable thoughts. The agent puts down his magazine and lifts a phone from a wall bracket. “Yes, sir?”

 _Sir_. It must be Mycroft. 

“Yes, sir. One moment.” The pitch of his voice changes. “Sir?” he says, addressing me now. I look over. “It’s your brother.” 

I take the phone. “Mycroft?” My heart is beating too quickly. Why would he be calling now? Surely this isn’t an eleventh hour pardon.

His voice is drawling, almost relaxed, if dry. “Hello, little brother. How’s the exile going?”

If he has simply called to rub my illogical (his word) choices in my face again… “I’ve only been gone four minutes,” I say irritably. 

“Well, I certainly hope you’ve learned your lesson,” he says, a trace of amusement in his voice. (Amusement: often a deflection for his true feelings. Relief, then. I _am_ being recalled!) “As it turns out, you’re needed.”

The realisation makes me feel dizzy and my own relief sharpens my tone, though I think it’s quite warranted – I’ve just been snatched back from the brink of certain and likely very painful death. Again. “Oh, for God’s sake. Make up your mind,” I say. “Who needs me this time?”

There’s a distorted electronic voice in the background, punctured by occasional bursts of static over the line. I can’t make out the words. “England,” Mycroft says wryly. 

The plane is turning in the air. My heart gives an inhuman surge of emotion and for a moment I’m afraid to let myself speak. I’m really going back. “What is it?” I barely manage to get out. 

If Mycroft has noticed (and he notices everything), he refrains from commenting on it. “Moriarty,” he says, the amusement falling away. “I’ll fill you in once you’ve landed.”

“Moriarty!” I say, startled, but Mycroft has already disconnected. I distractedly give the phone back to the agent and attempt to track down my thoughts, which are pulling in two completely separate directions. One stream is informing me that Moriarty simply cannot be alive, that this must be a trick of some sort, while the other – the stronger one – is full of nothing but John. I am going to see John again. In minutes. Short minutes. Surely he won’t have left the tarmac yet. Mycroft would have told him to stay, that I’m coming back. (He’ll want to be there for it, won’t he?) I search for Mary’s coat on the ground and find it and there he is, a dark spot beside her. My semi-luminous John. Tears sheath my eyes in moisture and I attempt to blink it away. I’m going to see him again. It wasn’t the end, after all. (And there is still a chance to say it.) The relief is making me giddy. If anything was certain about this mission about which I have been given so few details for my own safety (though how cloaking me in deliberate ignorance was meant to have kept me any safer is ridiculously flawed reasoning at best), was certain to result in my death. I would have died far from English soil and I certainly never would have seen John again. But I have a second chance. Life is going to carry on, Moriarty or not. 

(I should tell him. This time, I should do it. What have I to lose? This time is extra, an unexpected bonus. If he chooses to never speak to me again, it will still be less irrevocable than my death. I should do it.) 

The plane’s wheels bump smoothly onto the ground and it taxies to a halt. The doors are unfastened and I’m already on my feet. I know what I’m going to do, and this time, I’m going to do it. I wouldn’t have wanted to die without doing it. This is a bonus, this time. I should have died some six months in the future, but I’m here. With John. I’ve been given another chance, against all odds. I would be a fool not to take it. 

Mycroft is waiting at the bottom of the ramp, but John is just behind him. Mary is standing where she was, twenty metres back. (Far enough.) I push past Mycroft, ignoring him for the moment. No one else exists but John. Before he can speak or move or react in any way, I seize his face with both hands and put my mouth on his, bending over him and kissing him with all my strength. Everything else in the world disappears for the time being; all I’m aware of is his warm mouth on mine, of the fact that after a split second of startled non-reaction, he is kissing back, his lips pressing into mine. His hands come up to hold my elbows, but they’re gentle, not trying to dislodge me. Not pushing back as I feared (suspected) he would, recoiling in shocked horror, or perhaps gently disturbed perplexity. He isn’t pushing back at all, full stop. 

“ _John!_ ” 

Mary’s voice. Mary’s shocked, disbelieving, reproachful, hurt-filled voice. John abruptly breaks away and for a second that seems to last several minutes in my distorted thoughts, gives me a look which is both agonised and shocked, along with something darker lurking in the depths of his eyes, mostly hidden. He licks his lips and takes a large step away from me, turning so that’s he’s facing neither Mary nor I, but Mycroft. “Er,” he says. “Uh. Moriarty.” He’s speaking to my brother, trying vainly to pretend to all present that that hasn’t really just happened. He looks stunned, gaze directed mostly at the ground, avoiding all of our eyes. He clears his throat. “So – he’s back, then,” he says to some point just above the ground, though ostensibly to my brother. 

Mycroft clears his throat and out of my peripheral vision I can see him glancing at me. The elephant in the room (on the tarmac? We’re hardly indoors) is to be valiantly ignored, then. “So it would seem,” he says. “Er – ” Mycroft never stumbles, but is stumbling now. “Sherlock, I need to brief you in the car. John… ” He looks over John’s head in the direction of his wife. “Are you… coming along for that?” he asks delicately. 

Mary has come closer, hair still whipping in the wind and she’s trying to push it out of her shocked face, her other hand clenched into a fist. She’s staring at John, waiting for an explanation, for him to answer either herself or Mycroft. 

John holds up a hand in Mycroft’s direction, cautioning him silently to wait. It seems he’s forgotten how to speak. We all wait. “Uh,” he finally says, “I, er.” He stops, swallows. He still seems stunned and won’t look at me at all. “I, er, should – probably go home, actually,” he says, the words seeming to stick in his throat. “I want to help, though – if it’s all right with – everyone.” This time his face turns slightly in my direction, though he can’t bring his eyes to meet mine or even look at me. “Maybe later I could – er – text – or… something.” 

Mycroft is studying him keenly. He flicks another look at me, then says, “Certainly. One of us will be in touch later.” This is tactful, and for once in my life I’m grateful he spoke on my behalf. But I’m concerned about the internal breakdown John appears to be having. 

He turns toward Mary, all but shrinking away, cringing. Her face is full of spite and hurt and anger. (Justified, I suppose.) “Oh, you’re coming home?” she says incredulously. She gesticulates wildly at me. “You just _kissed_ him. Right in front of me. What the hell was that?!”

She’s on the verge of furious tears and John’s wince deepens. “Er, could we not do this here?” he mutters, moving toward her. 

He’s leaving. Going with her. My foolish gesture was a mistake, but strangely, I can’t bring myself to regret it. Not yet, at least. (Perhaps that will come later. For now, I can still feel his lips on mine, taste him there.) Mycroft and I watch them go in silence. Mary is walking several feet in front of John, one hand on her hip, the other held to her face. She gets into the passenger seat of the car and closes the door. John turns back and looks at me. Just looks, but it feels like it goes through me like a lance. I have no idea what that closed, uncomfortable, pained expression means. His lips tighten and he gives a slight nod, then gets into the car. Really no idea how to interpret that. 

“Well,” Mycroft says quietly from my left. “ _That_ was an interesting gamble. If I may, choosing to do it in front of his wife lent a certain element of drama to it all.”

“I don’t care who saw.” My eyes are on the car, my voice neutral. “I should have told him years ago. I wish I had. I should have told him before I left, at least. I thought I would never see him again.”

Mycroft is also staring at their retreating car, silent for a long while. Then he looks at me and says, “And you still may not. You may have broken what limited mental capacity he already had, there. I should really say something along the lines of sentiment, but you already know all that. I must say, I never thought you would tell him.”

Of course he knew. I thought that everyone must have known. Mrs Hudson certainly knew. I strongly suspect that Lestrade knows, too. Molly knows. Molly knew before I jumped. _You look sad when you think he’s not looking_. She always knew that John was the one who mattered the most. (She mattered, too. Just not in that way. No one matters the way John matters.) 

“Yes, well,” I return. “Second chances and all that. Now.” I change my tone, brusque. “What on earth are you talking about, that Moriarty’s back?”

Mycroft nods at the car. “Get into the car, little brother. It’s broken through the entire cable network. Nation-wide. Even the emergency channels.”

“What has?” I persist, following him to the car. An agent opens the door for me and I slide in. Am immediately plunged into the old nightmare of that one taxi ride. _The Tale of Sir Boast-A-Lot._ It’s the same voice; I recognise it even distorted. The same face, the one I’ve seen in my nightmares for years. Since the night he abducted John and strapped him to enough semtex to level a city block.

_Did you miss me?_

***

I’m not sure how much time has passed. There are no clocks in Mycroft’s surveillance dungeon, no natural light whatsoever. I check my phone, ostensibly for the time. Or so I tell myself. Of course John hasn’t texted yet. Then again, I haven’t texted him, either. The look on his face was blank shock, then troubled indecision, and then he was gone. Perhaps Mycroft was correct in that I shouldn’t have done it in front of Mary like that. Not that I care about _her_ , but to give John space to react to it without the awkward audience of my brother – never his favourite person – and his pregnant, recently reconciled-with wife. Still. If I had chosen any other time, he wouldn’t have been taken by surprise like that, and if he hadn’t been surprised, he never would have allowed himself to react, even for those four long seconds. I counted them. I can still feel it, hours later. The thought of it makes me feel simultaneously exhilarated and nauseous. But the anxiety is only partly justified, I argue with myself. He didn’t punch me. Didn’t run away. Not immediately, at least. He said he wanted to help, be involved. (He said he would text.) 

We haven’t found anything. There’s not a trace to be seen. The cable networks were accessed remotely by someone who bypassed every level of security. Someone very good. The level alone suggests Moriarty, or someone in his pay, but what it doesn’t in any way suggest is how he could possibly be alive. I phone Molly once Mycroft and I reached the MI5 offices and descended into his concrete bunker of a surveillance centre. It has a distinctly Cold War feel to it – poured concrete, metal gridwork covering the fluorescent light tubes, painted orange stripes on the walls, late seventies at the earliest – and I would be surprised that one can even get a mobile signal down here, but of course Mycroft’s people will have compensated for that. There isn’t much for me to do; Mycroft is supervising his hackers and code-breakers, but all I can do is try to think. The conversation with Molly was somewhat fruitless. 

“Listen,” I’d said, intense, “you did the autopsy. Is there _any_ way at all that he could have survived?”

“ _No_ ,” Molly insisted. “Puncture to the brain stem, bled out in less than twenty seconds, I would say. I’m looking at my report right now. There’s no _way_ , Sherlock!”

“You’re sure it was his body? DNA records matched?”

Molly had paused here. “There was no DNA on record to match it to. Or dental records. Not even fingerprints.”

I frowned at this. “That’s impossible. He would have been fingerprinted when he was arrested for the break-in at the Tower.”

“I know, but I’m telling you, his prints weren’t on record. I checked again; they still aren’t. I don’t know why.” Molly paused. “But it was his face, Sherlock, I promise you that. Definitely his body.”

I decided not to ask how she was able to confirm that. Some things are best left unimagined, after all. “Did he have any siblings?”

Molly made a sound of frustration. “How would I know? All I know is whatever he told me when we were dating, and all of that was a lie, so how could I know?”

I sighed. “Right. Well, thanks for pulling up that report.” I’d disconnected before she could respond and phoned Lestrade instead. 

He told me the same thing, in tones of great agitation, and swore up and down that they’d taken Moriarty’s prints, that the records had been properly handled. I hung up knowing what I’d known all along; that Moriarty had somehow had the records destroyed. But he was _dead_. I saw him shoot himself in the face. No one ever survives that. I don’t think. As I pace in Mycroft’s surveillance centre now, it occurs to me that this would be a safe question to put to John, to reopen lines of communication between us. I text him. 

_Are there circumstances under which it would_  
 _be possible to survive a self-administered shot_  
 _to the face?_

Half an hour goes by before he responds, but when he does, my heart gives an idiotic leap of relief. Not only relief, but that’s not relevant. 

_I just had a look in some of my textbooks and_  
 _while there are cases, it’s highly unlikely. Did_  
 _you check the autopsy report? If the brain stem_  
 _was punctured, there’s no way._

I text him back immediately. 

_I phoned Molly and she said that the brain stem_  
 _was definitely hit._

He responds at once this time. 

_Then what does it all mean? How can he be back?_

As ever, just talking to him about it makes everything clearer. I can picture it all now, exactly what must have happened. (My conductor of light.)

_The only options are that a) it wasn’t him on the_  
 _roof, or b) that someone switched the bodies after_  
 _I jumped. It was definitely him on the roof, so it_  
 _has to have been a switch._

There’s a short wait before his next text, but then John writes, 

_So, what are you and Mycroft doing? Anything I_  
 _can do? I want to be involved._

I look over at Mycroft and wonder what on earth we are planning to do about this. There are no leads of any kind so far. I text back anyway. 

_We’re a bit lost, honestly. I’m at the MI5 building_  
 _but going home in a bit. I might just explore a few_  
 _places tomorrow, if you want to come along?_

John writes back right away. 

_I’ll be there. We should have a bit of a talk_  
 _first, though. Can I come over around ten?_

A talk. That never bodes well. I can predict it all: he’ll tell me that I shouldn’t have kissed him, that he doesn’t feel that way, that it must never happen again, and that we should never speak of it again. Yes: that would be completely standard, predictably John-style evasion. I suppose I should just be grateful that he’s still willing to speak to me at all. He’ll be angry with himself for having kissed back, even briefly. That much, I know. Some men would take it out on the person who kissed them, but John does try to be fair. I’ll just have to endure the talk. I text back. _Of course. See you then._

***

I’m in the sitting room when he arrives, dressed and reading the paper, and trying to not think about the talk in advance. It’s bound to be awkward, being alone together after… that. He’ll be on edge and defensive. Can feel it already. I hear the door downstairs (I refused to take his key back when he reluctantly offered it, a day or two before the wedding) and then his unmistakeable step on the stairs. The door to the landing is open when he appears in it and stops, hesitating. 

“John.” I don’t look up, voice a study in neutrality and a projected calm that I don’t particularly feel. (Being impersonal will put him slightly more at ease. Have already imagined the worst possible reaction to his arrival: waiting for him at the door, face open and full of the emotion I usually endeavour to keep him from seeing, ready to beg him not to say what he’s come to say. No. I would never do that. My spontaneous romantic gestures are limited to that one instance. Probably for the best for all concerned.) I turn a page of the newspaper and wave toward his chair. I’ve made sure that his is at a respectable distance from mine, though he used to always drag it closer anyway. 

“Hi,” John says, and he’s still as uncomfortable as anything. He doesn’t take his jacket off, but comes over and sits down. I glance up at him and give a tight, controlled smile, which he attempts to return, but the attempt is half a failure. He’s sitting upright in the chair, ill at ease. 

When the uncomfortable silence goes on a bit too long, I close the paper decisively. “I’m being rude,” I say, with another tight smile that I don’t feel. “You wanted to talk.” Might as well force it, if he’s not going to bring it up. I lay the paper on the table to my left and look at him plainly, crossing one knee over the other, hands on the arms of the chair. Conveying open body language. Must look as though I don’t fear what he’s going to say. 

“Right,” John says stiffly. “I might as well just get it over with it, then. Er – look, Sherlock – I don’t know what the _hell_ that was yesterday or what you were thinking, and I don’t want to know. I just need you to understand that _that_ … needs to never happen again. I don’t know what made you think that doing that in front of my _wife_ – and your sodding brother – but we just need to never, ever go there again. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want it to have happened at all. I don’t think there’s any point in discussing it beyond this. Things like that ruin friendships and our friendship means more to me than I can say. I don’t know what you were thinking and I don’t want to be told. If we want to stay friends, the only thing to do is to not touch it at all. Ever. So we’ll forget about it completely. Everything will just carry on like normal. It never happened. Agreed?” 

Feel my lips tighten slightly, creases forming in my brow. “John…”

“No,” he interrupts. “That wasn’t a question. That’s how it has to be if we’re going to stay friends. So: are we agreed?”

I look him in the eye, lips still parted with whatever it was I didn’t get to say, and then I swallow and look away. “Agreed.”

“Good.” John is brusque, rigid, unbending. “So: that’s done. What are you thinking about Moriarty?”

I pause, not ready to move on just yet, gaze still lost in the ashes collected in the grate of the fireplace. (What option do I have? He’s made it clear that our friendship can continue despite my apparent collapse in judgement yesterday, but only on his terms.) I clear my throat. My voice comes out numb and completely even. (Small victories.) “Look into the record forgery, not that it will trace us back to him. I suspect he’ll be in touch when he wants to be.”

“Has there been any contact with anyone so far?” John fidgets. The corners of his mouth are still set in that stubborn way he has. 

“Nothing so far.” I’m expressionless, flat. (Would sort of prefer him to leave me alone to find my proper game face again, but I suppose I did invite him over. Best just soldier on through it, then. He’s the soldier, not me. I’ve always been, to Mycroft’s continued disgust, somewhat terrible at the stiff upper lip thing. Better not to feel anything when you’re utterly transparent. It’s the lesson he’s tried to drill into my head since the day that Redbeard – no. I refuse to think about that, especially not compounded with this absolute, crystal-clear rejection.) I blink and attempt to make myself focus on just this, this one thread of conversation and nothing else. Focus. 

“You’re sure it’s you he’s come back for?” John asks. 

Slight shrug. “Seems quite likely. He’s always been rather fixated on me.” Something about his tone strikes me. “Why? What are you thinking?”

John hesitates a bit too long, making me drag my eyes from the ashes and onto his face. His eyes flick up to mine, then drop away again. “I just thought… with Magnussen and all that, it might have something… well. Something to do with, uh, Mary.” 

He can’t look me in the face as he says her name. It occurs to me that this is why he feels the need to be involved. (It’s not because he wants to work with me. It has nothing to do with me. It’s because he’s still worried about his wife.) My heart drops into my abdomen and turns to ice there. I make myself speak. “Such as?” When he doesn’t answer, I prod him. “Do you have any reason to believe they were connected?”

John’s head drops forward, studying his hands. Complete evasion. (Interesting.) “I just… well, she’s obviously a very good shot, right, and I thought… Moriarty always worked with snipers, and… ”

“And you think she could have been one of them,” I finish, the pieces falling into place. (He suspects this of her – _this_ – and he still wants to protect her. The love of this man is not to be underestimated. And I will never have it. Not like this.) 

“Thought it was a possibility,” John mutters, still stiff. 

“It’s plausible,” I concede, a touch stiff, myself. “I don’t suppose you can just ask. I mean, married people aren’t supposed to have secrets from each other, as I understand it.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve never been married,” John says shortly. 

The verbal rebuke takes me like a slap in the face. (It hurts far more than I anticipated it could. Feel nearly breathless.) I swallow again and search for some sort of neutral response. By the time I find something to say, we speak at the same time. “No,” I say, agreeing.

“Sorry,” John says at the same moment. I stop and let him continue. “Sher – I’m – I shouldn’t have – ”

Oh, what, now that he knows how I feel about him, he thinks he should tiptoe around the subject of my singleness? After I spent four months planning his wedding? I think not. “It’s fine,” I say, my words cutting across his. “Listen: if you want, you could come along to Bart’s to have a look at the autopsy report for yourself, and I could have a look at the records. Molly says there are photos of the body.”

John nods too quickly, anxious to get past the awkward moment, it seems. “Yeah. All right. Let’s do that.”

I get to my feet and go to my coat without looking at him, leave the flat without checking to make sure that he’s following. If he wants to keep a professional amount of distance between us, I’m giving it to him. I raise my hand at the kerb as he locks the door behind himself. As a taxi slows, I say, still avoiding looking at him, “So, are things – all right – with Mary, then?” It’s jerky. I can barely form her name in a normal-sounding way. 

“Er,” John says. “Sort of. I think I managed to, uh, smooth things over. A bit.”

“Good,” I say, without meaning it at all. (It comes out sounding that way and I find I don’t particularly care.) I open the door of the taxi and slide to the far side, giving the address as John climbs in behind me and closes the door. 

***

The report is precisely as Molly described it. She offered to leave and let us look through the photos and reports on our own, but we both refused at the same time, speaking over each other. (Hate this. I’ve always preferred to work with John on my own when possible. Is it always going to be like this now? Both of us afraid to be alone together, lest the wrong thing get said?) 

Molly looked back and forth between us as we both spoke, then said, “Okay… then I’ll just, um, be over here. Got some paperwork to catch up on.” She gestured toward it with both small hands and, when neither of us responded, took herself awkwardly off. 

Now, ninety minutes later, John enlarges one of the photos on the projector and goes closer to the wall to examine something in it. “Molly, what’s this?” he asks, pointing at something near Moriarty’s right ear, just below it. 

She gets up and goes over. “What? Where? Oh, that? It’s interesting, isn’t it? I didn’t know. I thought perhaps it was ear wax or something.” She makes an apologetic grimace at John. 

“But it’s too smooth for that, don’t you think?” John says, pointing again. “It’s thick but too clear for it to be that consistency if it’s a lipid of some sort. It doesn’t even look natural.”

“I agree,” Molly says. “I was curious. I sent a specimen to the lab but I suppose it wasn’t anything, in the end.”

“What do you mean?” I ask from my chair, curiosity piqued. “How do you know?”

Molly gives a shrug. “Well, I… actually, I can’t remember what they said. I just thought it would have stuck out in my mind if it was anything. Let me just check.” She goes back to her computer and I go to stand over her shoulder as she opens the correct document. “Let me see…” she bends forward, peering at the screen, scrolling down. She checks again, frowning. “Oh, that’s very odd,” she says .

John comes over now. “What’s odd? What was it?”

Molly frowns. “They never responded. I never got a response from the lab, or if I did, I never entered it. I’m always so careful with the paperwork, though…”

“It was the lab upstairs?” John confirms, though of course there’s no other lab it could have been. He looks at me. “Would they still have it on record?”

“They’re supposed to,” Molly says, before I can respond. “I’ll go up and check with them.”

“If you like, I’ll go,” John says, too quickly. “They still know me here.”

Molly’s hands move expressively. “All right, then.” When he’s gone, she looks at me, not quite accusingly. “What’s going on, then?” she asks quietly. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” I move away from her and go back to where I was sitting. 

She gives me a look. “Sherlock. With you two, what’s going on? Are you fighting or something?”

“What makes you say that.” I can’t even be bothered to give the question proper inflection. I pick up the full-length autopsy report again and hold it uselessly. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it, fine, but it’s obvious that something’s wrong between you two,” Molly says. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen either of you so reluctant to be left alone together.”

“I kissed him.”

It takes Molly a moment to react to this. Then her hands go to her mouth. “You _what?_ ” When I don’t answer, she says, “ _Sherlock!_ ” in shocked tones. “Why?! I mean – I know why, of course, but – why now? What were you thinking?”

I shrug irritably and snap, “Oh, I don’t know, just something about getting sent off to my death and being suddenly recalled and having had a bit too much time to think about wasted opportunities and – things that would never get said, or done. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I suppose.”

Her eyes glaze over for a moment. I know she knows about the Serbia mission because Mycroft briefed her, Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, both about the plan and its cancellation. “Oh, Sherlock,” she says plaintively. “I understand. Have you talked about it?”

“No.” I set the report down. “He doesn’t want to. He essentially said that the only way we can go on being friends is if we never make reference to it again. That was just before we came here. So: everything’s just _fine_.” I add, with less conviction, “I’m sure it will be eventually, at least.”

Molly shakes her head, sniffing. “Did he really never know how you felt?”

“It would seem not,” I say stiffly. 

The door opens and John comes back in. Molly gives me a pained, sympathetic look, and turns back to her computer. 

I make an effort to sound normal again, if safely distant. “Any luck with the report?”

John shakes his head. “There’s no record of one having been sent. Ever. It’s not just that the results were lost; they don’t have any record of your specimen on hand at all.”

He looks at me and I can see that he already knows. “Molly – I don’t suppose you kept a second specimen?”

“No,” she says. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

I ignore this and go over to the projected photo on the wall and study the substance. “Hard, would you say?”

“Yes, quite,” Molly says. 

“Glue.” 

“What?” John asks. 

“Glue,” I repeat. I point. “It’s almost impossible to see, but you see this crease here?” It’s incredibly tiny, just a small wrinkle in front of one ear. “Glue. This is a mask. That’s how he did it. The rest he could have faked, if he hadn’t been so thorough that he had his medical records deleted entirely – blood type, DNA, dental records, fingerprints. This is not Moriarty’s body.”

There’s a small silence in the morgue in which I can feel John and Molly exchanging looks. I turn around to face them. 

“Yes,” I say, filling in the unspoken blank. “He’s still alive.”

***

John gets out of the taxi at his flat and I direct the driver on to Baker Street. I didn’t ask if he wanted to have dinner and he didn’t bring it up, either. I lean my forehead against the window and feel intensely depressed. This is almost worse than him having decided we just couldn’t be friends any more. (Who knew it was such a crime to have feelings. It’s not as though I did it on _purpose_ ,) 

I pay the driver and go inside once we’ve reached Westminster. Think about ordering something in but can’t make myself care enough to bother eating. I need to be focused on Moriarty and this is a massive distraction. I take myself to the sofa and flop onto it, trying to govern my thoughts but really just moping. 

John. He was always there, from the first. Yet it took until I saw him there, with Mary. That night in the restaurant. His ridiculous moustache notwithstanding. I took one look at him and my throat seemed to close. I knew then. It made me nervous about the reveal, made me stupidly decide to try to make a joke of the entire thing. I had planned to walk in, ask his soon-to-be fiancée if she would excuse us for a moment, have a short talk with John, make plans to see each other again soon, then make my exit. But then I saw his face, and knew then how I felt. And Mary was already there, so established. I saw the box he was turning nervously in his hands. Any attempts to scare her off would have only resulted in alienating John even further. And she was so relentlessly determined to like me, at least on the surface, that I had no cause for bad behaviour. Sneaky. Smart. I should have known about her then. I knew that something was off, but that alone should have shown me the lengths to which she was capable of manipulating a situation to allow her to keep John. If she had reacted like all of his other girlfriends, with predictable jealousy and resentment, it would have been easy for me to be unpleasant and easy enough for John to decide that the drama wasn’t worth it. He’d stopped dating after Jeannette, stopped even trying. But Mary was determined to be my friend. _Keep your friends close and your enemies closer_ , perhaps. It worked: I couldn’t alienate her. When I did things that most people found obnoxious, she laughed it off without fail, even when John was annoyed. Which sometimes annoyed him further, as though we were ganging up on him. Never meant him to think that. I was never on her side. The only side I’ve ever been on is John’s, even if he didn’t know it or it seemed otherwise because I was acting in his own interests. 

But knowing that I would have met my own untimely demise somewhere out in the field and being suddenly given a second chance, I couldn’t have let it go by yet again. A romantic would say that I should have told John every day since the day that I knew how I felt, but how could I? It always would have had this effect on our friendship, making him uncomfortable and angry and exposing what I feel would only serve to make me unhappy and unrequited, moping on the sofa. Which is precisely what is currently going on. Doesn’t take a genius, I suppose. Presumably he’ll get used to the notion and it will slowly fade from the forefront of his thoughts and he’ll thaw out again. I don’t know. It’s hardly my area, this. All I know is that I’m miserable, yet still decidedly unrepentant about having kissed him. I liked it. No, that’s not strong enough. I loved it, while it lasted. It was better than I even imagined. Those four seconds mean more to me than any four years of my life. I’m glad that I won’t die without having felt that, just once. I think of those four seconds over and over again, think of how, by the time I’m old, the memory will be worn weather-smooth over time. (Think of how many seconds of John’s lips Mary has had and wonder if any of them could possibly mean as much to her as they do to me. I doubt it very much.) 

I shouldn’t have told Molly. She won’t tell anyone, but she’ll pity me now. She already pitied me before and now it will be unbearably worse. (Hate that.) She had to pry, didn’t she. Her notions of compassion equate to mine of personal invasion. She meant well. I still should have kept it to myself. It’s private. That kiss is private. Mary and Mycroft had no right to see it, to witness that private moment. Couldn’t help it; they were there and I needed it to happen. (Wonder if John would have reacted differently in private, though. Probably not. This train of thought is futile.) 

The shadows lengthen across the sitting room as the evening deepens into night and eventually I fall asleep. 

***

For the next three days I don’t see John at all. For the first two of them, I don’t hear from him, either. I divide my time between Baker Street and Mycroft’s dungeon and occasionally poking around old haunts of Moriarty’s, those few that I’ve ever known of. The pool gives me the chills. The roof of St. Bart’s is worse. There’s nothing left of him; he or his people will have cleaned up too well. I know with every instinct that he’ll be the one to initiate contact, but I can’t just stay in the flat all day. 

On the third day, John texts. It’s very short. _Any progress?_

My response is even shorter. _No._

I hesitate after sending it, wondering if there’s any point in trying to establish some further contact, but eventually I end up resolving on doing nothing whatsoever. My misery continues. I find Mycroft at the Diogenes Club, where he admits that he’s as stumped as I am. His best computer people have found nothing, not a trace. He tells me what I already know, that Moriarty will be in touch when he feels like it. On his schedule. Only then can we do anything about it. 

“Where do you think he’s been for these past two years?” I want to know, as I’m on the verge of leaving. 

Mycroft shrugs elaborately. “Who can say? Perhaps he was waiting for you to come back. Perhaps he was in the Far East or South America or Detroit or Munich or Montréal. Who could ever know?”

Right. Should have known better than to ask. “You _will_ tell me, if you know anything,” I say, stare boring into his broad forehead. 

He shoos me dismissively. “Of course. Go bother someone else.” But he stops and looks at me then. “Where’s John?”

My shoulders jerk in something like a shrug of their own. “At home or work, I presume.”

“Ah.” Mycroft is a bit too understanding, though mercifully less smug than usual. “I see.”

I turn my back on him and leave. Molly’s pity is bad enough. Mycroft’s would be unbearable. 

***

On the fourth day, something slightly odd happens. I receive an email from a nameless account. It just shows as a new message, the name field completely blank. I frown at it and click. Inside is a video clip, John and Mary in their flat in the frozen still at the beginning. (What’s this, then?) It could be a virus; it doesn’t matter – I have plenty of laptops. I click the video and begin to watch. 

The camera is clearly inside their flat. From this angle I can see precisely where it must be – sitting room, northeast corner. John is sitting in his chair with his laptop, typing in his endearingly slow, two-finger fashion. There is no audio, only video. A few minutes pass. Then Mary enters the room from the direction of the kitchen or bedroom, impossible to say which. She stops, looks at John, and her hands go to her hips. She says something but her face is tilted down toward John in his chair and I can’t read her lips. Whatever it is doesn’t make John look up; he carries on typing. Mary says something else that John seems to ignore, more or less. Possibly he made one of those monosyllabic sounds he uses – he has a wide range of them. Mary tries again, expression becoming angry. John’s face snaps up, a stormcloud of sudden anger. It’s the sort of face that makes most people back off a step, but Mary doesn’t budge. She’s silent for a moment, though, then says something else. John slams the laptop shut and gets up, pushing past her. Mary stays where she is, looking in the direction he left. John reappears briefly, wearing his coat, says something, then leaves. Mary doesn’t move for a few minutes, then rubs at one temple and goes back to the kitchen/bedroom. The video ends. 

Interesting. Strange. I rewatch it, stopping at the end to decipher John’s last words. _I’m going out._ That’s it; he doesn’t say where. He never did with me, either. I wonder when this was and check for a time/date stamp. There is one in the top right corner, though that could have been altered. It reads yesterday’s date, ending at twenty past four in the afternoon. Curious, I check my text messages and see that John’s short text arrived just after five. (Was he looking for company? If so, he could have said. He should have.) Perhaps he didn’t want to see me while he was angry at Mary. (Where did he go, then?) I wish I knew. 

But why do I have this video? The culprit behind it seems obvious enough: Moriarty does have a history of conducting his own surveillance, of course. I wonder why he chose not to include the audio feed. Is it meant to arouse my curiosity? Why? Why does he think I would be interested in what’s going on in John and Mary’s flat? Why this moment, in particular? What was this one moment meant to show me? If he just wanted me to know that he’s watching them, why select that specific moment to show me? If they’re fighting, why should he think that I would care?

Then again, he knows how important John is to me. It seems that everyone knows that, save possibly John himself – though I may have recently adjusted his view of that, however reluctantly on his part. But Moriarty has always known, just as Magnussen knew. Is this a threat, then? (But why show me them having an argument?) I don’t understand the reasoning behind this. I hate not understanding. I decide to respond to the email. I think for a few minutes, then type: 

_I assume this is you. Why did you send me this? SH_

Within the minute, I receive a MAILER-DAEMON failure message; the email bounced back. I try sending the same message by text, to the last number I had for Moriarty, but receive a _message failed to send_ message to that as well. I sigh. This is strange. Instead, I try texting John. If he is in danger, I should be with him, anyway. 

_Busy tonight? Dinner, possibly?_

It’s close to five in the afternoon. He should be finished at the clinic by now. Perhaps I left it too late and he has other plans. It takes him forty-five minutes before he responds, but then he does respond. 

_I could, if it’s not too late. Where?_

Relief. I type back, _You choose._

His response takes another longish while to come, but he responds with the name of the Egyptian restaurant we once discovered on a stake-out about halfway between Baker Street and his flat and a time to meet there. I reply with a brief confirmation and try not to feel too pleased. 

I arrive before John. This is odd – I’m not used to meeting him in restaurants in the first place; normally we would arrive together. This part feels uncomfortably like a date and I hope that this aspect won’t spook him. I fidget with the silverware, my napkin, my glass of water, the menu, and everything else within reach waiting for John. Deduce the private lives and sexual histories of five other diners before he arrives, though it’s all forgotten the instant I see his familiar, sandy head pass the front windows. I knock a knife onto the floor in my agitation and decide to abandon it there. (For God’s sake. Get it together.) My pulse is hammering in my throat as John spots me and comes over, pulls out his chair and sits down. 

“Hey,” he says, though it’s a bit tight. Terse. 

“John.” I sound stiff. 

He picks up his menu, brow already puckered and bothered. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic is murder and the buses were all behind.”

“Of course,” I say, waving it off, but he’s not looking at me. Feeling slightly rebuffed, I pick up my own menu just to give my hands something to do, though I decided what to order when John suggested the place. 

He clears his throat after a moment and puts his menu down. “Right,” he says. Decision made, clearly. “So, any progress with Moriarty?”

He keeps his voice low enough to keep the other diners from hearing. Normally, in speaking about something like this, I would lean forward so as not to be overheard, but instinct warns me against moving any closer to John at the moment. “No,” I say. “Mycroft’s people haven’t made any progress with the electronic trail and I’m out of ideas. I’m assuming he’ll contact me.” I think of the video he sent me (am nearly positive it was him) and debate telling John. 

He nods and looks away. “I guess that makes sense. He always did prefer to call the shots.”

“I suppose when one is a criminal mastermind, that’s how it goes,” I say, trying for slight humour. 

John doesn’t respond to it, still resolutely not looking at me. This is awful. (Sort of want to just give up and leave, go crawl under a rock somewhere and take my troublesome existence out of John’s way. How long is it going to be like this? Should I say something? Is there anything to say?) 

A server comes by and breaks the awful silence, taking our orders. John orders exactly what I knew he would order. Could have ordered it for him, but experience has informed that he resents being anticipated that way. I give my order and hand my own menu to the server. She leaves and the silence resumes. 

“I went back to the pool,” I say after a bit. It’s a bit abrupt. 

John glances at me. “Oh yeah? Find anything?”

“No. Not a thing.” I pause, thinking of the cold feeling it gave me to be back there again. “It was… odd, being there.”

John’s brow furrow deepens and he appears to study the tablecloth at close range for a moment or two. “Bad memories,” he says. It’s not quite a statement, not quite a suggestion. 

“You could say that.” 

He frowns still harder. “He always knew how to push your buttons, didn’t he.” Again, it’s not a question. 

“I suppose he did,” I say, wondering if John is referring specifically to the fact that he was targeted specifically because of his significance to me. Magnussen did the same thing. Being friends with me has always proven rather hazardous to his health. (Sorry, John. Can’t help that part. Can’t help any of it, really.) 

If John knows or guesses what I’m thinking, he doesn’t say it. Our meals are served and at least the food gives us both something to put into our mouths other than the stilted conversation. It never used to be difficult to talk to John at all. That was one of the things that made him so exceptional. (Except now I find myself wanting to tell him, wanting to point it out. Just say it, _You realise it was you that Moriarty targeted because he knows that I have a functioning heart after all, don’t you? He said it. You were there. Did you understand what that meant at the time? I didn’t, but you’re better at this sort of thing than I am. Forgiveness is hard for you, but you understand love. It’s not my area; I told you that the first time we ever had dinner. You know, then. You know how I feel, what it means._ Cannot say any of that, obviously. He’s forbidden it. But it’s there nonetheless, the elephant in the room.) 

He starts talking about one of his patients as we eat and I make appropriate responses where required. Neither of us is thinking about his patient. Our plates are cleared. I wipe the corner of my mouth with my napkin and lean forward slightly. “I have a question.”

John immediately looks wary and doesn’t lean in, himself. “Okay,” he says, waiting. 

“You said you thought that Mary could somehow be involved. Or that she could have been working with Moriarty before.”

“Yes,” John says. “Why? Have you found something?”

“No,” I say. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about who might have done all the clean-up on the roof of St. Bart’s. Switched the bodies, glued on the mask, all of that. It’s possible it took more than one person, but he’s the sort of person who would trust as few people as possible with information that critical, information that he was still alive.”

John’s lips purse. “Obviously it would make sense for it to have been someone with medical training,” he says, following my train of thought precisely. 

I make a slightly apologetic face. “It would,” I say. “That doesn’t mean anything. Having a nursing license is in no way an implication.”

John is still, thinking to himself. Then his eyes lift, though not the rest of his face. “What would be?” he asks, his tone brusque, almost hard. 

I sit up straight. “John… I’m not suggesting that she is involved. That was your thought.”

“I know,” John says shortly. “So how do we find out whether or not she is, or was?”

“Do you actually think that she is?” I ask, evading the question. “Has she given you any reason to believe that she’s still living her old life?”

“Yeah,” John says. “She shot you.” He picks up his water and downs the glass, sets it down again with a little too much force. “And she doesn’t seem to think that there was any way she could have avoided doing that, either. She doesn’t understand why I have such a problem with her having lied to me. She’s suspicious of my every move, which in your books always means that the party has something of their own to hide. Lots of reasons. If she was done with all that, why does she still have a gun? Too many things don’t add up.”

“I thought you forgave her,” I say, frowning at him. 

“I did. Or I tried to.” John looks away again. 

“What is she so suspicious of?”

John’s mouth tightens and I realise my error before he can answer. (Wish I could retract the question.) “A lot of things,” he mutters. He clears his throat. “So: you were going to tell me what it would take to prove her involvement.”

Right: that. I think for a moment, then say, “Well, anything that would link her to Moriarty’s death, or the clean-up from it.”

“Like what?” John wants to know. “Is there something I could look for in the flat?”

“She would have disposed of any gloves,” I say, still thinking. “The mask would have been buried with the body. I suppose we could find out where it was buried and exhume it. But all that would get us, besides the mask, is proof that it wasn’t Moriarty, which we know anyway. And it’s not likely there would be any prints on the mask if the clean-up person was wearing gloves. Possibly the glue. Something that the person who cleaned up would still have.”

John nods. “I’ll have a look, then.”

“John.” I’ll have to tell him. “That… might not be the best idea.”

Now he looks at me directly. “Why not?” It’s almost hostile. “I want to find out why Moriarty’s back and what for as much as you do, and if the answer is in my own flat – ”

“He sent me something,” I interrupt. “A video. Your flat is bugged.”

John’s face darkens. “ _What?_ A video? Of what? Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands. 

I glance around the small restaurant. “Keep your voice down,” I tell him, frowning. “It’s very short, less than ten minutes. There’s no audio. It was sent to me from a nameless email account that bounced back when I tried to respond, but who else would have sent me a video to show they’re watching you?”

John is still staring at me, his cheeks a mottled red. “What happens in the video?”

“You’re sitting in your armchair with your laptop. Mary comes in and it looks like you have a short argument, then you leave and come back with your jacket on. Then you leave. That’s all, I promise,” I tell him quickly. “You can see it, if you like. I can send it to you. Or you can come see it on my computer, if you’d rather not have it in your inbox.” _For Mary to find_ , I don’t add. 

“Why would he show you that?” John wants to know, still very bothered. 

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it and I really don’t know. But I can tell you where the camera lens is – in the northeast corner of the sitting room. If you’re going to do any searching that could potentially lead to information on him, you should disable the camera first. And maybe check for others.”

John nods. “Was there a time on it?”

“Yes,” I say. “It was marked yesterday afternoon, though that could have been altered.”

John looks down at the tablecloth. “No, that’s accurate,” he says. “We argued yesterday. Again.”

I want to ask what about, but hesitate. John catches my hesitation and unspoken question and shoots me a glare for the question I didn’t even ask. (Can’t win.) “Also,” I add, trying to ignore his hostility, “I think that I should be the one to search your flat. Once the camera is gone.”

“Why?” Even this is angry. “It’s _my_ flat, damn it.”

Technically it’s Mary’s flat, but I decide to be tactful and not point this out. “Because if it is Moriarty who’s behind it and there are other cameras or any sort of recording devices, better for him to think it’s me getting too close to the source of the information than you,” I say quietly. “I don’t want you to be in any more danger than – than you already are, as my best friend. Better to draw the focus away from you, and if there’s evidence in your flat, it’s already too close to you.”

John swallows, then nods again. “Okay,” he says, accepting this. “I see.” He clears his throat. “Er – thanks. I’ll let you know when I get rid of the camera, then.”

“All right.” I study his tight, unhappy face for a moment. “Do you really think that Mary’s involved?”

His mouth purses again. “Put it this way,” he says, poking at the tablecloth with his fork. “There’s definitely something she’s not telling me and I don’t know what it is. Do you?” He directs this at me with the full intensity of his eye contact.

I’m startled. “No!” 

“You _would_ tell me, wouldn’t you?” John’s mouth is set rigidly. “Only it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve not told me something you knew about Mary.”

This is patently unfair. I could tell him that I actively chose _not_ to pursue my deduction that Mary lies regularly and often, for his sake, or for the sake of our friendship. My jaw clenches. “I didn’t know,” I say, my voice low and tense. “And I don’t know now.”

He glares back at me. “You’re positive?” 

“Yes!” 

John stares back for another moment, then relents, huffing out his breath. “Good, then. Or not good. I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.”

This is untrue, but I’m not sure if I’m permitted to share my opinion on this. I debate, uncertain and unhappy. The bill comes, a welcome distraction. I give my credit card to the server, which John notices but doesn’t actively protest, though he looks a bit as though he wants to. (I always pay when we eat together and he hasn’t objected since his earliest efforts to do so, years ago. I hope he’s not going to start being fussy about _that_ now.) 

Outside on the pavement, I button my coat and turn up the collar as John holds out his hand for a cab. As it draws to a stop, he nods at it. “That’s for you,” he says. “I’ll take the bus.”

(So he’s not coming to Baker Street, then.) I’m disappointed but endeavour to keep that to myself. “Do you want me to send you the video, then?” I ask instead. 

He shakes his head. “No. I know when that was. I don’t need to see it. And I don’t need it in my inbox, somewhere where Mary could see it. I know she reads my email sometimes.”

“Ah,” I say. 

John catches whatever it is he thinks I haven’t said in my monosyllabic response and gives me a looks that’s half annoyed (with Mary) and half exasperated (with me). “Right. So, don’t send it. I’ll let you know when I’ve found the camera.”

“Thank you,” I say. I mean for having even come for dinner, too, awkward as it was, but don’t think I managed to convey that. I decide to say it more explicitly. “And for coming for dinner.”

John gives half a smile, though he doesn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re still my best friend,” he says, not finishing the rest of the thought. _Even though you went and nearly ruined it with that stupid kiss_ , or _Even though you’re buggering everything up with these feelings of yours_ , or _Even though that kiss is destroying my marriage now_ or whatever it is of which he’s not actively accusing me. 

My own smile falls a bit flat. “Right,” I say. It sounds deflated. “Good.” That’s no better. I give up, open the door of the waiting taxi, and get in. “Baker Street,” I say, closing the door. As the cab drives off, I turn to look back at John but he’s walking briskly in the opposite direction, hands pushed deeply into the pockets of his coat, never once looking back. 

***

I dream of John that night, or it starts that way. I’m walking down the steps of the plane again and he’s waiting at the bottom. This time there’s no Mycroft, only John. His hands are behind his back at parade rest and he’s smiling. He knows what I’m going to do this time, and he wants it. I can’t make my legs move quickly enough to get to him; the stairs are seemingly endless. (That can’t be right; there were only eight or nine steps at the most.) I make a violent, desperate effort and launch myself forward, toward John’s smiling face, and now it’s finally getting closer, I’m nearly there – but then John is gone and it’s Mary in his place, in her wedding dress and she’s got a gun. I see it too late. She’s going to shoot me again. _No, Mrs Watson. You won’t._ But she did. She will. By the time I hear the report of the gunshot, the bullet is burning through my chest. I can feel it, though the intense pain hasn’t begun yet. It will. I look down at the small round hole beginning to seep blood darkly over my shirt. I look wildly around for John, beginning to panic ( _Don’t go into shock_ ) but he’s not there. It’s only Mary standing over me, her face suddenly unfamiliar, unsmiling. (Where is John?) 

I wake with a start, heart pounding, adrenaline from the dream flooding my brain. My eyes are raking the darkness of the bedroom for John’s face still, not yet having separated the dream from reality. I exhale deeply, and realise that I am hard. An unexpected reaction given the panic at the end, the flashback to the night I was shot. The emotional yearning of the dream has somehow translated directly to physical desire. So disappointing, somehow, to find myself proven once again so very human, as base as any other man. In the years before John I believed that sexuality in general, apart from being interesting in terms of criminal motive, was something that an enlightened person could choose to ignore. The abstinence of a more elegant being, perhaps. During the time when we lived together, the urges came back more frequently than they had in past years, but I managed to avoid thinking about it directly, from making the connection to John. But it seems that the mind cannot be entirely separated from its transport, as John used to lecture me when it came to sleeping and eating. He might as well have delivered the same lectures concerning sexuality. Is it ironic, then, if all of my sexual energy has been awakened fully for the first time in my life, as a direct result of his existence? Perhaps it isn’t ironic but merely pathetic, that the man who brought my body fully to life is the only person for whom I feel any desire, yet with whom it will never be consummated. But the established lines between mental and physical discipline have entirely broken down. My mind certainly knows who and what I desire; my body knows, too. 

It feels so tawdry to give in to it, but my flesh is aching. I think of the stag do again, for the hundredth time since it took place, and wish that I had been bolder. However, if he reacted the way he did to the kiss, only two possibilities exist for such a hypothetical scenario: a) he would have reacted the same way as he did to the kiss and everything would be even more awkward than it is at present, or b) he would have agreed to it, inebriated as he was, then regretted it later and resented me fiercely for having convinced him into whatever might have happened. It would have destroyed our friendship. It’s precisely because the possibility exists that he is so angry now: those four seconds are evidence. (His anger is evidence. Had he been merely repulsed or pitying, his reaction would have been gentler, more compassionate. I finally realise this.) 

I’m touching myself, thinking of him, fist moving in long, firm strokes over myself, thinking of his face. Of those four seconds, the warmth of his lips on mine. When I was younger, I used to have trouble sustaining interest long enough to finish off. I didn’t have anything specific to think about. Fantasy is key, it seems. With John, there is never any shortage of material, of possibilities to consider. _I would do this and then he would respond by doing that_. The endless fantasies of the hypothetical, never to be realised. He would let me touch him. Sometime. Somewhere. Pinned close together in an alley on a stake-out, hands pushing into each other’s trousers, shielded by my coat as I bend over his mouth with my own. Or his mouth on my body, his hair soft under my long fingers, his hands on me, sliding over my buttocks as his mouth works over my flesh. Perhaps he would want to push himself into me, bent double over a piece of furniture somewhere. The kitchen table. The bathroom sink. The desk in the sitting room, with the door to the corridor dangerously open. Or better still, perhaps it would be me behind him, his body hot around me as I enter him. (I can hear the sounds he would make.) Yes – this is the best one, tonight. My hand is flying over myself, body arching up from the bed, breath catching, suspended. (I can see us in my mind’s eye, as though from outside of myself, my taller form bending over John’s beautiful, more compact one, driving into him, can all but feel the hardness of him in my hands as I impale him over and over again…) My breath stops completely, stars bursting behind my eyes and my release arcs out over the blankets… am still imagining myself in John, feeling his climax overtake him while I’m still within him, feel it on my hands as tangible proof of his own desire for me. There’s another shot and an audible grunt of breath and then I’m spent and trembling, breathing hard as my body goes limp against the sheets. 

John. I want him so badly. Not only this way – I find myself wanting to do inane things like sit still and just touch him, hold him, kiss him for hours. Stroke his hair and find out every single detail of his life, his interests, the most irrelevant of his personal philosophies. All the things I can’t deduce for myself. Every tiny, mundane thing seems more interesting if I imagine doing it with John. Grocery shopping. Taking the tube. Paying the bills. I wish all over again that our domestic life could have resumed, but it was never to be with Mary in the picture. 

In the darkness of the bedroom, reduced to a particular sort of vulnerability after my climax, I give momentarily over to my massive resentment of Mary. I’ve done so well with suppressing it for the most part, or so I prefer to believe. She was there. When I got back, I mean. She was well established. Immovably so. It was fact. I had no choice but to accept it, so I accepted it. But sometimes it was more difficult than other times. And then she shot me. She shot me in cold blood. Her only regret appeared to be that I needed to die. I had no doubt (still don’t) that she intended to kill me, only slowly enough for it to happen at or on the way to the hospital rather than in Magnussen’s flat. The version of Moriarty that dwells in the deepest circle of my mind, the voice that whispers at me in my worst moments, urges me to lean out too far over a ledge, to take risks I shouldn’t, that voice said the one and only helpful thing it’s ever said as long as it’s been there: _John Watson is definitely in danger_. I lived in spite of Mary. (I lived to spite Mary.) But I couldn’t know what she might do to John if her desperation to keep her secrets from him was so strong that she would kill his best friend to do it. Once the truth had been aired, he could have been in tremendous danger had he left her that night, as he wanted to. I could see in his face that he intended to: he wanted to know the full truth, particularly the reasons (less the methodology) and then he would have announced his decision only after having obtained all of the facts. I know John Watson. I know the way he thinks. And it was imperative – to me, at least – that he not put himself in that sort of danger. Already cornered by Magnussen, Mary was desperate and lashing out. If John had left her then, who could have predicted her reaction?

But now, despite everything, she has him back. Somehow he decided to be a hero and to forgive her in one sweeping gesture. Remaining deliberately ignorant of the contents of the memory stick she offered him in lieu of the courtesy of a proper, face-to-face explanation. John is an idiot for having chosen not to read it. And Mary has got away with everything: threatening Magnussen for the papers, shooting me, having John find out (some of) who she really is, and she is the one whose collection of seconds of John’s mouth is so vast as to be uncountable. (She will never feel as strongly about him as I do. I know this, know it with every fibre of my being. Unproven yet it might as well be considered fact.) She calls what she feels for him love. I am certainly no expert but even I am aware of the concept of putting the object of one’s desires above one’s own. She would do anything to keep him. I would do anything for him, full stop. No questions asked. Take myself out of the equation. I already did that, didn’t I? Thought I did. The wedding. All of that. I suppose the kiss undid some of that. But I would die for him, if need be – but how much more alluring the concept of getting to live with him is, to stay with him. Be with him. Grow old with him. 

The thought of knowing how badly I want this and that it will never happen makes me feel nearly nauseous, a knife twisting relentlessly in my abdomen. I know very well that this is precisely why I have always avoided emotional entanglements. Mycroft would relentlessly remind me of Redbeard, were he here and aware of my current thoughts. The loss that destroyed the better part of six months of my eighth year of childhood. My father once told me, once I was an adult, that it matured me before my time. Mycroft would say the opposite: that I have stubbornly refused to mature in any way other than intellectually. (Sod Mycroft. He should find someone else on whom to unleash his useless theories.) Meanwhile, it appears to be a tap which I have no power to switch off. I will be trapped with what I feel for John – unwanted on both sides as it is – for the rest of my life. He was the only one there ever was, and is the only one there ever could be. And he doesn’t want it. Or refuses to allow himself to want it for longer than four seconds, at any rate. 

***

And yet he suspects her involvement. This is, somehow, the thought I wake up with. John knows that there is too much of which he is unaware – of which he has chosen to remain unaware. (Cannot fathom making that choice. How could ignorance ever be preferable to knowledge?) The truth is that is he doesn’t want to know, yet he knows instinctively that he _should_ know, that he needs to know. I wish he had let me read the memory stick, at least. I cannot imagine what could have been on it (if indeed, anything at all) that would be so much worse than being an assassin who shot his best friend that Mary thought it – if not those other things – would make John change his mind about loving her. It must be really bad. I’ve asked Mycroft and he’s still digging. Mary buried her trail too well. 

I check the time. After eleven. I suppose I was awake half the night. Perhaps John has found and disabled the camera by now. Check my texts, but there’s nothing from him. I decide to text him. Perhaps he’ll answer between patients; he does sometimes. 

_Any luck with the situation?_

I leave it at that, just in case Mary reads his texts. (So invasive. Yet I always let John use my phone and laptops. I understand, I suppose. I just don’t like it that _she_ does it, and John seems to resent it, too.) He texts back fifteen minutes later. 

_Couldn’t. Wasn’t alone. Later._

I consider the situation over again and realise that if Moriarty knows that John is aware that he’s being watched, even that would be dangerous for him. I text back: 

_Let me, then. Are you both at the_  
 _clinic today?_

John’s next response takes longer; he must have had a patient. But then he responds precisely half an hour later: 

_M is at an appt and then going shopping_  
 _with friends for the afternoon. Go ahead,_  
 _if you want to. Be careful._

I smile. _Of course._ I lose no time; this way I can disable the camera while simultaneously letting Moriarty know that I won’t have him spying on John, then search Mary’s belongings for a link to him. I put my coat on and pelt down the stairs, hailing the first cab that comes by. 

Their flat is quiet, almost oppressively so. The tension of their recent fights seems to hang in the air. Or perhaps it’s merely stuffy. I spot the camera, which is very small, and drag one of the kitchen chairs over to stand on it. I look into the lens and shake my head before cutting the power supply. _No. No, you don’t get to do this to John. No, you don’t get to use him as a pawn any more. Play your games but leave John out of it._ He won’t, of course. He knows how I feel, and if Mary is somehow connected to Moriarty, he could use John as a pressure point against her, too. John is doubly at risk. He is perfectly capable of holding his own, but Moriarty’s sort doesn’t play fair. 

I’ve never been inside the flat without John before. I have a spare key, but have never used it before today. Have never been in their bedroom before now. I stop in the doorway, looking at the bed with a resentment that burns in my chest like a memory of Mary’s bullet. I go slowly to the left side, John’s side, run my fingers over the blankets. Hesitate, then bend and inhale the scent of his pillow. It smells like him. (Am stupidly tempted to pick said pillow up and bury my face in it.) I don’t, but I sit down on the edge of the bed for a moment, where John would sit when he wakes up, feet dropping to the floor as he rubs his eyes as he always does when he first wakes. I swallow. (Enough. Do what you came for.) I get to my feet and smooth out the coverlet, which has irritating little bobbles stitched all over it. It looks like something Mrs Hudson would use for the dusting. I cross the room to the closet. Mary’s clothes dominate two-thirds of the space, one frumpy blouse after another. There are three small boxes stacked on the floor in the back corner. I crouch and pull the first one out. It contains her wedding shoes (malodorous), what appears to be costume jewellery, and three balls of acrylic yarn and some needles. The second box contains nothing but nursing texts. I inspect them for a name or a school but there are only the initials A.A. inside each cover. A.G.R.A. Privately wonder if we’ll ever know what it stands for now. (I should have borrowed the memory stick from John and read it myself. Was trying to be tactful, assumed he would read it on his own time and then tell me.) The third box contains a stack of photographs of places so dull that they can only be surveillance photos. The first set are of a countryside that could be nearly anywhere. The second last picture, upon closer inspection, shows a small roadside sign labelled in Cyrillic. Barabinsk, I decipher. If memory serves, a tiny place roughly halfway between Omsk and Novosibirsk. What a godforsaken part of the world. I shuffle through the other photos and find pay dirt toward the end: six shots of the exterior of the pool where Carl Powers was murdered, several of the interior including the exits and windows. Followed by several photos of Baker Street, of John and I entering and exiting, several more of us in various public places, leaving the Yard, long shots of us in the windows of restaurants. Then shot after shot of St. Bart’s. The rooftop. Then Moriarty’s body, eyes wide-open, dead – or so I’d thought at the time. And finally, another photograph of a male corpse, lying on what appears to be a hotel room bed. I have no idea who it is. 

Kneeling on the carpet, I come to my senses. Mary cannot know that I’ve seen these. I replace them as precisely as possible. Should have worn gloves, but it’s too late for that now. I replace all three boxes with care and shut the closet door. Time to get out. The camera is in my coat pocket and I know where to find proof when the time comes that John is truly ready to see it. I open the door to the corridor and stop in shock: Mary is just closing the downstairs door from the inside. I freeze: it’s too late to go anywhere. 

She turns sharply and sees me, looking up. At this angle her face is frightening. The nightmare returns for a moment. She must not have her gun or I feel certain she’d have drawn it by now. We haven’t been alone together since she shot me. The air is charged with negative electricity, all but crackling between us. “What are you doing here?” Her voice is tense, controlled. 

I decide on facetiousness, paired with a tight, insincere smile. “Oh, you know – just popping round. Forgot John was working today.”

Her expression darkens. The only bright thing in sight is her coat, a too-loud spot in the silence between our words. “Try again,” she says grimly, unimpressed. It’s the old game, trying to show both John and I that John is completely obtuse when it comes to me. It humiliates him and deflates me. Two for two. 

I shrug. “Nothing much. Just checking on something. I’ll be on my way.”

Mary’s mouth sets. “John isn’t here, is he?”

I frown. “No, of course not. I told you, I just came by to check on something. Classified, I’m afraid. I checked with John first and he said it would be all right. Nothing to worry about.”

Mary starts up the stairs one step at a time, her eyes never leaving my face. She stops three stairs below me, blocking my exit. “Look,” she says, her voice unmoved. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but don’t get any ideas. You can’t prove a thing.”

Well. If she’s going to throw down the gloves, there’s no need to keep up the pretence of amicability on my side either, is there? I lift my brows. “Oh?” I let my tone cool by several degrees. “Except, of course, for the bullet that was extracted from my inferior vena cava, currently in the very-classified possession of the MI5, along with a confidential statement from the supervising physician – all on record, of course. It would certainly be found to have been fired from your gun, if they had access to your gun, which a search warrant could gain easily enough. But of course that wouldn’t be necessary, given the security footage that was recovered from the hard drive of the central security computer system at CAM Global despite your having erased it after I was taken to the hospital, in which your face can be clearly identified. Mycroft’s people are very, very good. If I have chosen not to act thus far, you know my precise reasons why or why not.”

Mary’s face twitches almost imperceptibly. “For John’s sake, I assume.” That’s not quite a sneer. 

I keep my face implacable. (She’s trying to rattle me. It won’t work.) “You assume correctly.”

She takes another step, shortening the space between us, but still several feet below me. “Which is why you’ll go on keeping it,” she says, too steadily. Unafraid. “For John’s sake.”

I hold her gaze unwavering but don’t speak. 

She takes my silence as complicit agreement. “Good,” she says, then starts up the rest of the stairs, shouldering past me. I waste no time moving toward the door, but her voice calls me back. “Oh, and Sherlock?”

I stop at the bottom of the stairs and turn back. Now it is she who is above me. 

Her eyes are hard and cold in the dim light of the stairwell, her face half-hidden in shadow. “If you ever kiss my husband again, I will ensure that it is the very last thing you do. Is that clear?”

Feel my lips tighten. “Quite,” I say, my voice frosty, _t_ sharp as the tip of a dagger. 

“He would never, you realise,” Mary adds, twisting the knife. “It’s never even crossed his mind. You can give that idea up right now. You’re lucky he’s still willing to be your friend, after all you’ve put him through. Don’t expect anything else from him. Even if you hadn’t done all that, you never stood a chance, you know. He’s not like that. You’re a logical person. Don’t delude yourself.”

There are a dozen retorts I could make. _You didn’t see him the night of the stag do. You don’t know us, know our friendship. Then why did it take him four seconds before he stopped it?_ Instead I swallow and show myself out, leaving Mary’s half-silhouetted form in the shadows behind me. 

***

Thrown off-balance by the unexpected confrontation, I return to Baker Street and completely forget to text John about the camera. He sends me a message later to ask, so I confirm that the camera has been dismantled. I keep quiet about the photographs in his bedroom closet. He texts back a concise thank you for having removed the camera. I don’t respond. What’s the point? His politeness has reached a point I find difficult to tolerate. He speaks to me the way he would speak to a client or distant, elderly relative. 

It’s the same two days later when Lestrade calls and invites us to a crime scene. I call John to ask if he wants to come along and he does, to my slight surprise. He is unfailingly cool and polite throughout, however, which only makes it worse, somehow. Lestrade sends us both quizzical looks which we both refuse to intercept. Later he corners me as John is crouching by the John Doe in the skip. 

“Everything all right with the two of you?” he mutters out the corner of his mouth. 

“Fine,” I say stiffly. 

His mouth quirks. “Right,” he says dryly. “That was convincing. I won’t ask, then.”

“Good.” It’s very short. 

He thumps me once on the shoulder and moves away without another word. It occurs to me that, annoying as he is, I am rather fond of the man. (Sentiment. Ridiculous.) At this point I feel closer to him than I do to John. Only John could ever make me feel this lonely, and now he’s doing it even while he’s here. 

***

We solve the case close to six in the morning and John goes home, grey-faced with fatigue, to sleep. We part with few words. I fall asleep in my bed for once, exhausted despite myself, and don’t wake until the mid-afternoon. 

I shower and dress, then make some toast and eat it while flicking idly through the newspaper. Poke about on my laptop for a couple of hours. Drain my mug of tea and pour another. I sit down again, then hear the downstairs door bang. Deduce within his first two stairs that it’s John, and he’s running, charging up the stairs. (What time is it? Why is he here?) I check; it’s close to seven already. Hadn’t realised so much time was passing. I brace myself, instinctively anticipating that this will not be pleasant. The door to the corridor is open as he storms into the kitchen, his face clouded with anger. 

“How long?” he demands, skipping all preliminaries. 

I blink, caught off-guard. I don’t know what to say. “John – ” I start, but he cuts me off. 

“How long have you known? How long have you felt like that?” John is furious with me, clearly, hands balled into fists at his sides. 

My lips part, at a loss for words. I break the eye contact after an uncomfortable second. “John, I… it’s really not – ”

“No,” he interrupts again, voice harder than steel. “You don’t get to tell me what it is and what it isn’t. Answer the fucking question. How long have you felt this way?”

I swallow. “Since I got back,” I say quietly, to the floor just in front of John’s shoes. 

Can’t see what his face is doing, but his hands are opening and closing again, clenching. “And not before that?”

“I… don’t know when it started. Before that, definitely, but that was when I became actively conscious of it.” (Is he trying to humiliate me?) “I thought you didn’t want to talk about this.” I say stiffly. 

“Why… the _hell_ didn’t you ever say anything?” John grinds out, ignoring me. “Seriously, Sherlock, _why?_ Why would you let me go on thinking there was nothing more to it for you?”

I risk a look at him. “I couldn’t.” The words are clipped. “Mary was already there. I saw you with the ring, in the restaurant.”

“Sherlock.” He’s still loud, still angry. “You saw it, you knew what I was going to do, and then you saw _her_ , and you just let me walk right into it. You knew she was hiding something and you let me marry her anyway, without ever saying anything. Just let me ruin my own life without so much as a word. And you couldn’t be bothered to tell me how the fuck you felt until you realised you weren’t going to go off to Serbia to get killed after all. What the hell was that about? Why only then and never before? And then you go and kiss me in front of my bloody wife!”

I press my lips together, getting angry myself. “How could I have said anything, John? You got _married!_ I just didn’t want to – go on not saying it, just that once. I’m sorry, I didn’t – ”

“You’re _sorry_ ,” John repeats, cutting me off again. “You’re fucking sorry! Jesus Christ, Sherlock!”

I gesticulate, wishing I weren’t still sitting down. “What do you _want_ me to say, then?”

“I wanted you to tell me that you loved me before you died!” John shouts. “I wanted you to tell me _before_ I married someone else – a bloody psychopath assassin, at that! Do you have any _idea_ how I felt about you, back then? How hard _I_ had to work to keep it hidden from you? And now you go and just – kiss me like it was a complete afterthought, only after it’s too bloody fucking late?” 

He’s shouting louder than I’ve ever heard him shout before, red in the face with fury, but only one clear thing stands out to me, the shock of the realisation wiping out absolutely everything else. I’m on my feet before I’ve even thought consciously about getting up, the chair clattering to the floor behind me. “It’s not too late,” I tell him, more intense than I’ve been in my life. “ _John_. It’s not – it was never – ”

“Yes, it is!” John shouts, angrier than ever.

I’m in front of him but he won’t allow me any closer, wheeling back to throw a punch in the direction of my face. I grab his fist and wrestle his arm down and he hits me with his left fist instead, though I’m gripping him by the upper arm. We struggle as he does his best to hurt me, getting in the occasional blow as I endeavour to hold him off, but then I succeed in backing him forcibly into the wall beside the sliding doors, pin his arms to the wall above his head, and kiss him. He goes still for a second, then wrenches his arms free, grabbing at me again, but this time it’s to seize whatever part of me he can reach, still struggling against me, kissing back with violent strength. His lips open under mine, his teeth and tongue are doing battle on my mouth, kissing me so hard I can’t breathe. (Don’t care. Couldn’t possibly care. _John._ It’s the only thought that counts, the only thing that could possibly matter right now. I’m not counting the seconds; there’s no energy left for anything other than him.)

After a moment he wrests his mouth off mine, glaring at me. “Sherlock, you can’t just – kiss me and hope it will change everything. I moved on. I _worked_ at not loving you any more, at making myself stop grieving your death. I’m married. I have a child on the way. You don’t get to do this _now_ , after everything else that’s happened. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Yes it does,” I insist. “You do want this. We both do.” I trap his head against the wall behind him with my mouth on his again and for a moment he lets me, as though he can’t quite make himself stop it in time, but then he curses again and pushes my face away with both hands. 

“Stop,” he orders weakly, though it’s less insistent than before. “I moved _on_ , damn it.”

“No.” I refuse to accept this. Not now that I know what I know. “You kissed back. You still love me. And it’s not too late. It never would have been, no matter what.”

John’s tongue touches his lower lip, a nervous gesture, though he doesn’t seem nervous. Uncertain, then. “Sherlock – ” He’s wavering. “After all that time – it can’t just _happen_.”

“Yes, it can. Stop fighting it, John,” I say urgently. “You still love me. Kiss me. _Please._ ”

John hesitates for one second longer, then nods despite himself. “God damn it,” he says, then hauls my mouth back to his, kissing me over and over again, breathing my name and every curse in his impressive collection as our hands and mouths attack one another. He’s dragging my shirt out of my trousers, pushing the dressing gown off my shoulders. His (small, perfect) hands yank me to him, my body flush against his, and desire like I have never experienced, not in any of my fantasies, not ever, scorches through my body in less than a second, leaving me hollow and wanting so badly I’m rendered utterly helpless to it. To him. Everything about John – his perfect mouth, the softness of his hair (softer than I even anticipated), the clench and slide of the muscles of his arms where they’re touching me, his anger – especially his anger – all coalesces into a hot liquid darkness that’s spreading through my gut and pelvis, hardening my flesh, testicles filling and lifting away from my body. _God_. This is exquisite torture, having John, tense and aroused and still angry, fighting to force me closer (no need; I am more than willing), but here, finally, finally in my arms. 

John is erect in his trousers, as hard as I am, and he’s pushing against me, moaning into my mouth. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he pants as we rub against each other. “Jesus, Sherlock. All that time. All that fucking wasted time.”

“Stop it,” I say, eyes half-closed, breathing into his neck, inhaling him, marking him with my lips and teeth and tongue. “Just stop it.”

“I’m – so angry at you – and myself – at how it all turned out,” John gasps out as my hand shoves into his trousers to grasp his erection. 

“I know.” His hands are raking over me, gripping my arse and all but ripping open my trousers in haste. I pull myself out of my underwear, impatient, and he looks down and makes a sound so wanton I can feel it directly in my penis. His hand closes around it and I stop being able to breathe for a moment. We moan in tandem and John bites savagely at my neck, thrusting hard into my fist. And it’s good, it’s so torturously, painfully good but it still isn’t enough – all of the hunger on both sides, having built up for too long and now spilling out through all of the cracks in our façades is making us both too ravenous, dangerously so. I want to devour him, tear through his body to search out its every secret, know him better than I know myself, every cell of every inch of him, piece by piece. I feel a primal need to be within him, penetrate him, be in him and one with him and own him. The fingers of his left hand are pulling my hair so hard it’s sure to fall out in chunks and I still don’t care. I let go of his penis and yank his trousers all the way down. He follows my lead and kicks them off, leaving his shoes and socks where they are. One day we’ll have sex with all the niceties of full nudity, perhaps; right now everything is considerably too urgent for that. Cannot wait another minute for him, for this. I lift him roughly, pinning his torso to the wall with mine, my penis fitting naturally (insistently) into the cleft of his arse. John opens his eyes directly into mine and they’re dark, pupils pooling into his irises.

“Yes,” he says, terse. “We have to do this. We both need it, and it has to be like this, this time. Because if I take you, I’ll split you in half, in the mood I’m in.”

His words sent a frisson of desire so intense down my spine that I nearly drop him. My breath is shaking as I pant against his face, struggling to get the words out. “I don’t – do we need – ?”

“Jacket pocket, inside right,” John says shortly. 

Could ask him why he has lubrication with him (does he take it everywhere he goes?) but it doesn’t seem important right now. I manage to extract it, John’s weight braced between my body and the wall, slick some over myself, then guide my penis to that dark, guarded place that goes to the very core of John. It’s very hot and impossibly tight. It will never fit, but when I open my mouth to protest, John glares at me as though my caution alone is making him furious, and shoves himself down onto my penis. The moan is joint, his with pain and arousal in equal measure, mine in desperate desire that is seconds away from spilling into him long before it’s time, overwhelmed with the power of my arousal for him combined with what I feel for him. He’s the one controlling his slide down onto my stiff penis, his body protesting and shuddering around me. I’m sweating, nervous system in overdrive with the sensation of it. The sounds John is making are utterly obscene, pain and pleasure and profanity all mingling on his tongue as I support him against the wall. His calves are pressing into my sides and arse until I’m fully seated within him. John stops moving for a moment, eyes closed, mouth open, and then he swallows and nods. 

Wordlessly I begin to move within him, the sensation more intense than I ever could have anticipated. I start slowly, for my own sake as well as his, allowing his body to stretch around me, but as it relaxes I carefully thrust up into him. It feels so intensely good that I have to concentrate hard on not reaching orgasm too quickly, my upper teeth nearly tearing my lower lip, breath coming hard out my nose as I push myself into John. I shift my weight after a moment, my hands digging harder into his arse where I’m holding him up and something about the shift produces an extremely vocal reaction from John.

He curses again, but it seems it was good. “ _God_ , Sherlock,” he moans. “More – do that ag – _ah_! God, yes! Fuck, Sherlock…” he trails off, mouth falling open again, and I realise I’ve stopped being as careful as I should, pushing harder and deeper into him, gaining speed. The sheer amount of pleasure is staggering, and this isn’t even the high point yet, the climax. I’m _in_ John, part of him, one with him. He is mine, every panted breath and curse on his lips because I put it there. I’m thrusting so hard that his back is slamming repeatedly against the wall, yet he isn’t complaining. “Harder!” he commands, though it could be reasonably described as begging, too. “ _Harder_ , Sherlock – yes, God yes, Jesus fucking – oh God, oh – yes – exactly like – ” John’s words dissolve into formless moaning and then he’s coming, neither of us even touching his penis, head thrown back against the wall as a shot of semen spurts upward onto both our shirts, then another and another, I don’t know how many more. I’m nearly blind with the overwhelming pleasure, the driving desire to climax. I’m plunging into John heedlessly, over and over again, thighs trembling, sweat running down my temple, penis harder than rock within him. John’s still panting in the aftershocks of his orgasm, but he finds his voice, pushing me verbally toward my own release. “That’s it, Sherlock – come on, do it, come in me. Let me feel it. You’re so hard, you’re almost there – that’s – yes!”

It feels like dying as the wave of pleasure barrels over me, gripping me like a vice, then releasing in waves into John. I don’t know how long it goes on. It feels like hours of endless, breathless, flesh-devouring bliss, until my breath rushes back into my lungs and I come back to myself, back to life as a new person. John’s. One thousand percent John’s, now and forever. I open my eyes, forehead leaning damply against his, and his eyes find mine and hold them, wordless. 

For a long moment we don’t move, panting against each other’s mouths, bodies trembling. Then John swallows and says, “Jesus, Sherlock. That was the most intense thing I have ever, _ever_ experienced.”

Don’t know how to respond to that. “It isn’t always like that?” I ask. 

For some reason that makes him laugh. Of all unexpected times to laugh, but his laughter is contagious and I find myself laughing with him without knowing precisely why. “You’re an idiot,” he says, but it’s fond. More than fond. His anger seems to have dissolved with the sexual release, to my slight relief, though his anger was perfect for fuelling our desperate need for this to happen at last. Our shared, mutual need. It’s nearly impossible to believe that he wanted it as much as I did, but the evidence is right in front of my eyes. 

“Are you still angry with me?” I ask, just to clarify.

John smiles slightly and shakes his head. “No.” He draws my face to his, gentler this time, locks his arms around my neck and kisses me deeply and very, very thoroughly. (I could die now. There is nothing more I could ever want than this, unless it’s to do it again and again and again, to make myself one being with John Watson over and over again for the rest of our days.) 

After a bit, he pulls back and says, “Do you want to go lie down? You must be getting tired of holding me up.”

Lying down sounds rather appealing, as it happens. My limbs are still trembling. I agree, ease myself out of him, and let John down. He kisses me again, then starts herding me toward the bedroom, stopping to kiss me again in the corridor, then again inside the room. Beside the bed he peels off my opened trousers and slides my pants down with them. I unbutton my soiled shirt and toss it toward the laundry hamper. John leaves his on the floor, removes his shoes and socks, then bulls me into the bed, where he climbs onto me and resumes kissing me. We’re naked now, skin to skin, connected all down our fronts. I understood intellectually why people murdered for love before. Now it doesn’t seem so much a motive as a perfectly valid reason. I will never willingly give this up. Not for anything or anyone. Except for John himself, I suppose, should he stop wanting it. I open my eyes. “So you do still love me,” I murmur against his mouth, wanting him to confirm it. I’m sure. He didn’t deny it before. (Still want to hear it.)

John opens his own eyes, dark blue and lovely. His legs are tangled with mine, the weight of his torso fully relaxed against mine, fingers in my hair and on my face. “I never meant to,” he says, sounding troubled. “I thought I had really got over it, until you kissed me. I really did. But obviously, yeah. I mean, it should be obvious, given what we just… yeah. I do. I suppose I never stopped loving you. I buried it away and did my best to forget it, but it was always there.”

This is what I wanted to hear. I smile. “Good.”

“You’re _such_ a git sometimes,” he complains, but undermines it by smiling and kissing me again. 

“Perhaps, but you love me,” I say again between kisses, my fingers in his hair, too. It’s nothing less than astounding to be able to state this casually, as though it’s acceptable as fact. (I am loved. By John Watson. The best man I have ever known. This is nothing less than utterly staggering.) 

John hums his agreement into my mouth at this. We stop talking then, just lying together, kissing and kissing, my hands roving over his back and arse and legs and shoulders and face. Revelling in it. It’s better than I ever knew it could be. Have never felt joy this fierce, this profound. I never want to leave this room or John again. It’s utterly, utterly sentimental, but I can’t make myself care. Not when John is here. After awhile, his penis begins to harden against my body again. It takes only that to realise that I’m not precisely soft any more, either. It’s been perhaps half an hour since we left the kitchen. Had not realised my refractory period could be that delightfully short. There isn’t nearly as much hurry this time, but after awhile we’re groaning into each other’s mouths and rubbing ourselves together again, my hands on his arse, until a second and considerably gentler climax overtakes each of us. After that, John slides off me, leaving one arm stretched over my chest, one leg draped over mine, his head turned to face me on the same pillow. “We should talk,” he says. 

“I do have some questions,” I say, my pulse still racing from the second orgasm. “Why today? What happened that set all that off?”

John smiles briefly, but it fades. “I checked my email when I woke up today,” he says. “I also received a couple of emails from a nameless account, with videos inside. Of my flat.”

I frown. “What? I deactivated the camera. I did, John, I swear! I have it here somewhere.”

John makes a sound of negation. “Not that one. Evidently there were a couple of others, possibly better hidden. One video was of you in the bedroom. It showed you looking through some boxes in the closet and finding some photographs.”

I feel my face flush, thinking of that. Of inhaling John’s scent from his pillow, sitting on his side of the bed the way he would. How humiliating. “John, I… I don’t know what to say,” I say awkwardly. “I was never intending you to see that.”

John looks confused, then gets it. “Oh, you mean the bit with you by the bed?” He smiles and touches my face with one finger. “Don’t worry about that. I mean, at the time – but I’m not talking about that. It’s about the photographs. I meant to go and look for myself; you made me curious, since you hadn’t said anything after any photos after, but I thought I’d just watch the other video first.”

“What was it?” I’m curious, myself. 

John takes a breath, then says, “It was you and Mary, in the stairwell.”

I feel my spine stiffen, recalling that conversation. _If you ever kiss my husband again…_ I don’t know what to say to this. 

“She threatened you,” John says flatly. “Again. It wasn’t bad enough that she shot you in the first place, but then she went to the house in Leinster Gardens and threatened you, prepared to shoot again. And now, after you’ve done everything in your power to make her safe, even shooting Magnussen and willingly giving up your freedom and your work and everything else, she had the bloody nerve to threaten you _again_.”

He’s forgotten one, or never knew, I realise now. “She also came to my hospital room and threatened me there,” I tell him wryly. “It’s not precisely out of character. Or all that surprising, considering.”

John’s face darkens with anger. “It was the last straw,” he says shortly. “I still don’t know precisely why you wanted me to forgive her or trust her, but I’ve been thinking you were trying to keep me safe – from her, that is. Took me awhile to work that out, but I got there eventually. Meanwhile, since the day you almost went to Serbia, we’ve been fighting non-stop.”

“Because of me?”

He acknowledges this with a slight nod. “Because of that kiss, yeah. Because I responded. Because I was too slow to stop responding. Mary threw every epithet in the book at me in the car after we left, and we’ve been having absolute screaming matches around the flat since then. Mary said all this stuff about how ‘tolerant’ she’s been of you, encouraging our friendship no matter how weirdly close we were, according to her. She’s been acting like we’ve had some conspiracy going on behind her back all this while. She demanded to know if we’d been having an affair, if we had any sexual history at all, if you’d ever kissed me before. Of course I said no to all of it, because it’s true. But I didn’t tell her how I used to feel, that I used to lie awake with wanting it, wanting you, and she seemed to know that I was holding something back. She knew how deeply your death affected me – I mean, I was still grieving you a year and a half after you’d supposedly died. Still visited your grave every Sunday afternoon. She came with me sometimes, but I always made her give me a moment on my own, to talk to you and say whatever stupid stuff I would say. Although most of the time I didn’t say anything. The point is, she knew that you’d been hugely, enormously important to me, more so than anyone else I’ve ever known. But she would always say these things that sounded like they were meant to challenge that. I told her, the night that you came back and I was trying to propose, that she was the best thing that could have happened to me – since I’d lost you, I meant, but she finished the sentence for me and reworded it, saying that she was the best thing that had _ever_ happened to me, and I couldn’t even just go with it and agree, even knowing that you were gone and that I didn’t… I don’t know, owe it to your memory to be loyal in that sense. I still couldn’t do it and she knew it.”

John pauses to breathe after saying all this. I feel a knot in my gut, hearing him talk about all this, how much I had meant to him. (I never knew. How was I that blind?) “Go on,” I say around the knot, putting my hand over the forearm that’s lying across my chest. 

“I suppose she was always a bit jealous, is all,” John says. “I didn’t mean for her to be. I thought there wasn’t anything to be jealous of – we had our relationship and you and I had our friendship and I didn’t think they conflicted. I didn’t realise how much it bothered her until after you kissed me and she seized it as proof that she had a reason to be jealous. It certainly made it easier to understand how she could have shot you so casually, even if she wasn’t aiming to kill. Which I’m still not convinced of, frankly. Even if she was, she took a _huge_ gamble on that. You very nearly did die. Another minute or two and your brain activity would have stopped and you would have been declared dead. Your heart had stopped beating on its own hours before that.”

“I didn’t die, though,” I remind him, stroking his arm. 

“If you had, though, if you’d died without my ever having known how you felt – ” John stops abruptly. “Sherlock, I… anyway, Mary never even seemed particularly apologetic for having shot you, and when I got angry about that one day, she tried to use it as further evidence that I was on your side, despite everything I said about it not being about sides as much as it was about her having shot my best friend in the chest. I just… I mean, I suppose she really did have something to worry about. I get that it’s all because she loves me, but there are things you just don’t do. Threatening you again, fully intentionally – not in the heat of the moment or anything, but in cold blood – that’s just too much. So I sat by myself in the sitting room for awhile just thinking about that and about wanting to get divorced and how and when I would do it, when I remembered the photos. So I went upstairs and had a look for myself, and now it all makes sense.”

His face is set and grim. I feel badly for him. “I’m sorry,” I offer inadequately. “I am, John. I was going to tell you, this time. I just hadn’t thought of how to do it. It was only three days ago.”

“I know,” John says, and his arm tightens a bit. “I’m not blaming you. I shouldn’t have said what I said before about it being your fault that I married Mary. I’ve always believed you when you said you didn’t know. And obviously you didn’t know she was working with Moriarty. I get that you probably didn’t dig because of our rocky start when you first got back.”

“I did tell Mycroft,” I confess, feeling that now is probably a good time for full disclosure. “He’s been digging from the start. I even called him from your wedding to ask if he hadn’t found anything that he felt the need to share at that point. He just told me to keep myself uninvolved and that he would deal with the research and all of that. Her roots are essentially untraceable, though. Or have been so far. Anything we might have learned was probably on that memory stick.”

John shakes his head slightly. “It was empty, you know. I did look. When I saw that, I realised that she didn’t have the courage to tell me who she really was. That was why she wanted me to read it when she wasn’t around, though that was obviously a bit of manipulation meant to keep me from reading it at all. I didn’t tell you because I thought it should be private, between Mary and I. I thought that if I offered her a fresh start, she would change and leave all that behind. Just be the Mary I wanted her to be. Maybe the Mary she wanted to be, too. But she never changed and it showed in the little things. And then she threatened you again.”

“Have you spoken to her since you learned all of this?” I ask, searching his face. 

He shakes his head. “She wasn’t home, and I was just so angry I didn’t know where to leave myself. I don’t even know fully what I was expecting or hoping for when I got here, but the thought that she had lied to me even more than I realised, that she was the sniper at the pool, my assigned sniper at the hospital, and that she had the temerity to be angry with me over a kiss that only lasted for a couple of seconds anyway, when she nearly killed me more than once in the past and nearly killed you, too. I just thought, sod this. I’m tired of denying all of what I ever felt for you and I suppose I came here to confront you about that. I didn’t mean to be that angry about it, but it was all of it together, I guess.”

“It’s not a problem,” I tell him, and close the short space between us to kiss him again. He returns it, moving his hand to my face to cradle my jaw. When it comes to an end, I attempt to focus again. “So now the question is, where do we go from here,” I say. “Are you going to tell Mary about this?”

John shakes his head. “No. God knows she has enough secrets of her own. I mean, I will tell her eventually. Just not yet.”

I frown slightly. “Do you plan to continue being married to her?” This is important. 

“No,” John says, without any hesitation. The speed of his reply does much to reassure me. “No, I think we can fairly say that I’m quite finished. I can’t even bring myself to feel all that badly. But this is what it should have been all along, isn’t it? Just you and I.”

I smile, but say, “Maybe, but that’s not what happened. But we’ve found it now. Assuming you want to continue this.”

John gives a short bark of laughter. “Are you mad?”

I smile again, properly this time. “No. I hope not.”

John lifts his head from the pillow to check the time on the clock on the table beside the bed. “I’ll have to go back there tonight, much as I don’t want to. But we still have a bit of time. How long before you think you can go another round?”

I hesitate. “I’m not entirely certain. It’s… not something I…”

He smiles nicely, understanding. “Have a lot of experience with?” he fills in, gentle. “That’s all right. We’ll find out, won’t we? Because I’d quite like to have a go at what you did earlier, if we could, before I have to go. I was never particular, when I used to imagine what it might be like, with you, but I want to try everything, eventually. If you’re up for that, that is.”

The thought of John entering me the way I did with him in the kitchen earlier is intensely arousing. A flush spreads down my chest, warming my belly and settling in my testicles at the mental image of it, of imagining John within me that way. “Very up for that,” I confirm, mouth gone slightly dry. 

John chuckles at my evidently quite-visible reaction. “Good,” he says, and trails his hand down my abdomen to cup my genitals loosely in his hand. “I was always so attracted to you, you know. Long before I realised it. I always knew that I loved you, though how and how much got clearer later, too. Getting to touch you like this – I never thought it would happen, Sherlock.” He kisses my chest, his hand caressing my hardening penis. 

This is pure bliss, having John completely focused on me, absorbed in me. I can’t speak, so I close my eyes and let the pleasure of his touch fill me as my body responds to him, penis stiffening more and more as he strokes it, as though it’s hardwired for his touch and his alone, his tongue applying itself to my left nipple before his mouth works its way up my chest to suck at my throat. He is everything – strong, tender, terribly sensual, and he loves me so very much, every single touch full of it, spilling onto my skin. I have to touch him back, clumsily do my best to communicate all of the same. I want to put my mouth absolutely everywhere on him, discover the taste of every part of his skin. I will keep no part of myself from him. Suspect this will be more difficult mentally than physically, but he’s been lied to enough. I will give him as much of myself as I know how to give, and my body is his to do with as he pleases. When I’m gasping and on the brink of coming, I stop him, closing my hand around his fist. “John – I’m – I don’t want to – ”

He understands immediately. “Turn on your side, then. Yeah, away from me. Good.” He puts a hand behind my knee and pulls my thigh upward. “Keep that there,” he instructs, then puts his mouth right by my ear. “I’m going to put my fingers in you. Okay?”

I’m nodding before his confirmation is finished, head twisted to look back at him. John’s raised himself so that he’s leaning over my face, our eyes on each other’s as he begins to rub at my anus, just light circles around the edges. Somehow he managed to bring the lubrication into bed with him without my noticing, managed to get it onto his fingers in much the same manner. (Either I’m slipping or I’ve underestimated him again. Thought I’d finally learned to stop doing that.) He’s kissing me, distracting me from the slight discomfort of his fingers pushing past the tight ring of muscle and I think of how I thrust into him, with his help, without any of this gentle preparation. (It must have hurt. But he was the one who insisted on it going as fast as it did.) It occurs to me very briefly that I should be feeling rather overwhelmed by this – a feast of John, being intimate with him, after having starved for so long, but I don’t. And anyway, I’m incapable of refusing him, refusing it, taking things slowly. I want him to consume me. And this was horribly delayed in the first place. No, it’s the right thing to be doing, I think, as his mouth finds mine again. I feel his penis nudge against my body, pressing into me and I do my best not to resist it. “That’s it,” John whispers, hand on my hip now as his pelvis pushes forward, his lips brushing against my mouth. “I’m going slowly, so that you can adjust.”

It’s difficult speaking, but I force the words out. “I – didn’t, before – ” I stop, gasping, but make myself go on. “It was – fast – did I – ?” 

“Hurt me?” John finishes, his hipbones resting against mine now, buried within me. “No. I’ve, er, explored a bit of that before. Just on my own. I knew it wasn’t going to be a big problem. Are you all right?” 

It feels full, mostly. Invasive, yet not unwelcome. “Yes,” I say. Then add, spontaneously, “I like it – like having you there. Inside me.”

John kisses my ear and my shoulder and says, his words muffled against my skin, “I loved having you in me, too. Going to move now. Okay?”

“Very okay.” My voice has gone hoarse. John begins to move within me, just small movements to give my body time to adjust and stretch around him. The discomfort eases rapidly as he moves, shifting a bit, and suddenly something happens that seems to light me on fire from within. I drag in a lungful of oxygen, my penis throbbing with the sensation, and John makes a satisfied sound. 

“Found it, did I?” he asks, voice husky, lips on my ear. “Good.” His tongue is on my ear and I can’t even respond to him, not verbally. I’m panting and quivering with the assault of sensation and John responds by increasing his tempo. “Did you know about that?” he murmurs, a bit breathy now. “Ever found your own prostate before?”

“No!” I gasp, beginning to see stars. “John – touch me – please!”

He does it at once, his small, strong hand gripping my penis and rubbing it hard, his own thrusting in time with his fist. I’m dying of the sensation on both ends, within me and without, the tight grasp of his hand and his penis turning me into a live wire from within. The pleasure tightens in my gut, cuts off my breath and my body is moving of its own volition, pushing back onto him and forward into his hand. His lips and teeth are on my shoulder, breath hot, and then I hear myself cry out, testicles drawing up, the orgasm bursting out of me, the heat of it flooding my body within as I ejaculate, breath suspended, my hand closing around John’s to hold it in place as I come and come and come, my eyes squeezed shut so hard that I’m seeing stars, every muscle clenched. When it finally releases me, I feel my body relax, though John is saying my name, our bodies slapping together as he continues thrusting into me, his wet hand gripping my hip and then he stills for a long second, his release expelling into me in liquid heat. There’s another burst of it as he buries himself as deeply as he can go again, then one more time. Then John goes limp against me, holding me tightly to him, breathing hard. I put my hand over his on my chest and silently revel in the overwhelming intimacy of it. Now it’s done, all but written in stone. We are one. Nothing can change that. (I hope.)

“You okay?” John asks, still breathless. “I hope that wasn’t too rough.”

“It was – amazing,” I say, wishing I’d thought of a stronger word. Revise. “Incredible. I’ve never – it felt better than I ever knew it could.”

John finds my fingers and weaves his into mine, kissing my neck. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“That’s what I thought, earlier, in the kitchen. It felt so good. I just wanted to try it this way, too.”

“Of course,” I say, fighting the wave of sleepiness that is trying to take over. “We can do it both ways. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever we both want,” John corrects. He kisses my shoulder again and sighs. “I should probably go home,” he says reluctantly. 

Make a negative sound. “This is your home.”

“You know what I mean. The flat.”

I open my eyes and check the time. It’s past ten-thirty. “You should,” I agree reluctantly. “You’ll have to think of a good reason why you were out for so long, if you’re keeping this a secret.”

“I’ll think of something.” John eases himself out of me, which is slightly uncomfortable and still produces a slight twinge of pleasure. “I’m sorry,” he adds. “I’d really like to just stay and sleep with you.”

I would much prefer that, too, but decide not to make it any more difficult for him. “It’s all right. You’ll come back, won’t you?”

John gets out of the bed and goes over to find his clothes, most of which are on the floor. “Soon,” he promises. He pulls on his socks and pants, finds his shirt and buttons it, then looks around for his trousers. 

“Kitchen,” I supply. I sit up, despite really not wanting to. Should see him out, though. 

“Oh, right.” John goes out to find his trousers and I stand and go pull on a dressing gown, leaving it untied. John is just zipping his flies when I come in. He smiles at me and reaches for his jacket. “So, what we never got to discussing before – about Moriarty. Now that we know she was working with him, would you say that she must be part of the reason why he’s come back?”

“I still don’t know,” I say, “though it’s quite plausible. I mean, I don’t know why it’s taken him two years. If he’s only come back because I’m evidently not dead, either, then why did he wait over a year since my return? Why now at all? I still don’t know. We’ll have to wait for him to make the next move.”

“Like always, then,” John says. “I just feel that Mary must be involved. It just makes sense on a gut level. I don’t have anything logical to base that on, but it just feels right to me.”

John’s gut has proved to be correct nearly as often as my logical processes have, and at the moment I don’t have enough data upon which to base a deduction. I’m cautiously willing to trust John’s instincts, given that. “I suppose we’ll find out, sooner or later,” I concede. 

John zips his jacket and comes over to me, putting his hands on my hips. “Let’s see where the Moriarty thing goes, if and how it affects Mary and all that, and then – ”

His eyes find mine. “And then – this?” I ask, my face likely betraying a little too much insecurity on that front. 

He nods, and leans up to kiss me. He meant it to be quick, I think, but I take hold of his shoulders and draw it out. He lets me, lips opening to mine, our tongues touching again, his arms tight around my back. After a bit, John pulls away and smiles up into my eyes, a smile so lovely it’s devastating. “I’ll see you soon,” he promises. 

“Okay.” There’s something hard in my throat, something which is afraid that something will change before that happens. Mary will sway him somehow. He’ll leave and realise he regrets the entire thing. That he was just caught up in the moment but really did move on, stop loving me. But I have no choice but to let him go back to her, at least for now. I stay where I am, nude in my open dressing gown as his steps fade, the outside door downstairs opening and then closing again, and then he’s gone. I retreat to the bedroom and swoon onto the less-than-spotless sheets like the Victorian that I’m not. I don’t want to sleep. I want to lie awake all night and remember every single part of this over and over again until the entire scene is committed to memory. (John. He is everything. Absolutely everything.) 

***

He texts me in the morning. 

_On my way to work. Still thinking_  
 _about yesterday and trying not to_  
 _smile about it when anyone’s looking._  
 _It was the best thing that ever could_  
 _have happened. YOU are the best_  
 _thing that’s ever happened to me._  
 _You know that, don’t you?_

I was still asleep when his text came, but the text alert woke me and I read the message as soon as I saw it was from John. His words crawl directly into my chest and warm me to a ridiculous extent. I’m smiling stupidly, particularly at the reference to his awkward proposal to Mary and the truth of his actual feelings on what the best thing in his life has been. I text him back the words I never actually said last night; seemed quite unnecessary as he came to confront me about my all-too-evident feelings in the first place. _I love you._ Easier to text it than to say it. 

There’s no response but I imagine John on the bus, his wide, beautiful smile taking over his face, his eyes softening. The urge to see him again is intense. Perhaps I could disguise myself as a patient. Mary has seemingly begun her maternity leave. She won’t be there. (No. It’s too dangerous, if it’s meant to be a secret. Neither John nor I were demonstrably quiet last night. Someone could talk. And God only knows where Moriarty has all placed cameras.) I sigh and drag myself out of bed to shower instead, as I’m deplorably sticky from last night. My hands and torso are crusted with dried semen, to say nothing of every part of myself below the waist. Definitely time to shower. 

In the hot water I discovered that I’m a bit sore, despite John’s careful preparations. Don’t care in the slightest. If it’s too soon for penetrative sex again, I can think of myriad other ways to please him, to give him pleasure. So many things I know so little about. More data needed. Research will have to happen in short order. Meanwhile, I wash myself carefully, luxuriating in the memory of last night, which I lay awake thinking about for hours, smiling foolishly in the dark. My libido seems to have recovered its marathon with John yesterday and as I wash myself, I give in to the urge to let my hands linger, caressing myself and imagining that it’s John. Would very much like to shower with him. His text has done much to alleviate some of my worries from last night in terms of his having regrets. He doesn’t seem to have any yet, not so far. 

I shut off the water eventually and dry myself, then go and get dressed. Mrs Hudson has been in and out, I see; there is decidedly more food in the fridge than there was before. I find I’m extremely hungry for once and make a proper sandwich. John depleted my energy supplies, it seems. I smirk to myself and eat the sandwich while flipping through the paper. Nothing about Moriarty. Nothing of particular note. 

I finish the sandwich and get up to switch on the kettle when the doorbell rings. I wait, listening, but Mrs Hudson does not appear to be home. I go to the window to see who it is and there is no one there. Curious. I decide to go and investigate. Strange things happen when Moriarty is about, after all. There is an envelope on the floor in front of the door, pushed in through the letter flap, it seems. I drop down to inspect it visually first. It’s flat; there doesn’t seem to be anything large inside, though that’s no guarantee of safety. However, Moriarty would never just send me an envelope containing a bomb or anthrax; he’d want to see it personally. I check the hall for cameras, just to be safe. There are none that I can detect. I touch the envelope carefully then pick it up when nothing happens. I open it, there in the hall and inside there is a single sheet of folded paper. Bohemian stationery, handmade paper. Slanted female writing made with a fine-nibbed pen. Parker Duofold, iridium nib, to be precise. My mouth quirks; he might as well have signed it personally. 

_Roof of the Crowne Plaza London, 7pm._  
 _Be there or be square. xx_

Interesting. Very interesting. In the old days, he would have texted. Clearly some things have changed. The handwriting does not match that of whomever it was he had found to write my name on the envelope containing the pink phone. Different woman coerced or paid to write it, then. I carry the message upstairs and contemplate the meeting place. There are several locations of the Crowne Plaza hotel in London. I think of the ones whose precise locations I know, and realise that there is one quite close to Bart’s. Yes, that will be the one. My phone pings then, surprising me. It’s John. 

_Just got a strange little note, think_  
 _it might be from him. Did you get_  
 _anything similar? If so, plan?_

Hmm. I frown and text back. 

_Yes, I got one, too. What time_  
 _do you finish today?_

He responds at once. _4pm. Should I come to Baker St then?_

I text back an agreement, then call my brother. 

***

I’m waiting when John arrives, pacing in the sitting room and trying to pretend to myself that I’m not. When I see him approaching, my pulse rate doubles and I spend approximately five seconds mentally panicking and second-guessing everything that happened last night and wondering if I didn’t just imagine it. But then John’s key is turning in the door and his footsteps are on the stairs. Quick: eager. He appears in the doorway as I turn from the window. Our eyes meet and he smiles. 

“Were you watching for me?” he asks, pointing at the window.

I nod; my voice appears to be non-functional at the moment. My entire being, body and mind, is consumed with his presence, reacting to him, wanting to reach out to him, make some sort of move that confirms, reclaims, restates, but I’m rooted to the spot where I’m standing. 

His smile broadens. He leaves the doorway and comes over to me, his hands pulling my folded arms apart, unlocking the spell. I can move again, relieved that he still appears to want this. John steps into my space, puts his hands on my hips and tilts his face up to mine. My face is already angled down, waiting, hands settling uncertainly on his shoulders as we kiss. The panic was unnecessary. Should have known. (Couldn’t; it’s hardly my area. Can’t take this for granted. It’s far too important.) The kiss deepens quickly, our mouths opening, bodies instinctively getting closer. John’s arms slide around my back, hands roving possessively, somehow tender and hungry at the same time. I settle for gripping his shoulders until my hands move of their own accord to his face. (John. What I feel for him exceeds the bounds of my own capacity for emotion; it renders me completely overwhelmed and incapable, yet I couldn’t possibly wish the sentiment away. I am drunk with it, with him.) 

We part for breath but John doesn’t move away at all, still holding me tightly. His eyes find mine and he’s smiling again. “Do you know how many times I’ve read your text today?” he asks, his voice soft, eyes full of something that is dissolving me from within. 

I shake my head slightly. “Tell me.”

“Probably over twenty,” he says. “You meant it, didn’t you.”

It’s not a question, yet he still wants a response. A confirmation. “Yes,” I say. “But you knew that. That’s why you came over yesterday. Because you knew and it was a problem.”

“It’s not a problem any more. Thought you’d deduced that.” John’s lips are hovering over mine. “Say it. Please. I want to hear it in your voice.”

My voice is low but I do as he asks. “I love you.” It sounds awkward as arse to me but it doesn’t seem to matter to him. He spares me then, his lips on mine, and this kiss is harder, more insistent.

We’re supposed to be talking about Moriarty’s message, but John is breathing into my mouth, hands pulling my shirt from my trousers and unbuttoning it, then drifting down my back and lower and I’m rapidly losing the ability to think of anything but him, how much I want him. Sentiment: have always been aware of the dangers, yet I couldn’t possibly care at the moment. It’s not yet five o’clock. There’s time enough for this. And it seems so important to confirm it, make it happen again. Be absolutely sure. I wrest John’s cardigan off his shoulders, make quick work of the buttons of his shirt and he divests me of my trousers and underwear. I step out of them and get him out of his and John pulls me down to the floor. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since everything that transpired last night but none of the hunger has left me; if anything I want him even more now than I did before. My body is responding with the eagerness of a man half my age, which I suppose is appropriate enough given how little use I found for my libido back then. We’re rolling on the faded carpet, bodies rubbing together, insistent, moisture already gathering between us and making things slick. 

“I’ve been thinking of nothing but this all day,” John tells me, already a bit short of breath, straddling my hips. “Counting down the minutes when I could see you again.”

I try to sound nonchalant in response and judge the instant that I speak that it’s wholly unsuccessful. “Is that so?”

John bends over my face, making a noise of agreement and twisting his hips so that his erection slides firmly against mine, making me groan. “Have you been thinking about me?”

“I’ve thought of little else,” I answer honestly, my voice hoarse. 

He smiles and without warning, moves down the length of my body. If I’d ever experienced this before, I would have guessed sooner what he intended to do, but he doesn’t give me an opportunity to think before putting his mouth on my penis. I inhale sharply, the intensity of the sensation taking me unawares. The feeling is overwhelmingly good, as good as being inside him was, or having him within me. I can’t breathe, gasping like a fish out of water. Try to say his name but it comes out mangled and unintelligible. 

He likes that, tongue and lips pressing in firmly before lifting his mouth off to say, “Like that, then?”

I nod, not trusting my ability to form words, propping myself up on my elbows to watch him.

He smiles at me. “Never done this before, but I know what it feels like, what I like. I used to imagine doing it sometimes – an embarrassing amount for someone who was trying to convince himself he was strictly straight.”

I swallow and find words. “Will you show me?” John’s eyebrows quirk upward slightly, confused: clarify. “What you like,” I say. “How to do it. I don’t just want to – ” I make a vague gesture, too general, meant to convey my slight discomfort in being the only one getting anything from this. He understands, brow clearing. 

“Now?” he asks, and I nod. He looks intrigued. “Yeah, we can try that,” he says. “Never done that before – with anyone.” (With a woman, he means. Obviously he’s never been with a man before in any respect.) He thinks for a moment, then says, “Turn on your side. Yeah, like that.” He shifts, turning himself around and adjusting until he’s in the right place. “The only real tip is to try to keep your teeth out of it. The rest – ” he gives me a cheeky look – “I’m sure you’ll deduce.”

I want to ask him something else, but before I can he takes my erection into his mouth again and I can’t think of anything other than the mind-blurringly phenomenal sensation of my penis in his mouth, the slow suction of his tongue and lips. Except then I remember his erection hovering just in front of my own face and remember that I said I wanted to do this at the same time. If this is how it feels, then I want him to be feeling it, too. I study it, then grasp it upside down and cautiously slide my mouth over the head. John’s entire body jerks, one of his legs nearly making contact with my head. He makes an apologetic sound without releasing my penis and the vibration echoes up the shaft and throughout my pelvis, and it’s all I can do to avoid accidentally thrusting into his mouth. While the temptation to just close my eyes and revel in the indescribable sensation, it will certainly help me prolong the experience (and make it worthwhile for John) if I concentrate on him, on doing the same thing for him. I apply my full attention to his penis therefore, grasping at his arse with my free hand. I imagine how we must look, naked and curled around each other on the sitting room floor, penises in each other’s mouths, sucking and moaning into each other’s flesh, bodies moving in their own rhythm, each of us being careful not to push far or choke the other. The image feeds my arousal, despite feeling more exposed than I ever have in my life. The most vulnerable part of my body is in John’s mouth, my quivering, sensitive flesh millimetres from his teeth. But then, he’s in the same position. (Imagine Mrs Hudson or Mycroft walking in and catching us in this position. Or Mary. Thrill of nasty satisfaction at the latter.) I’m so focused on observing John’s pleasure, mapping his progress, the way his taste changes as he draws closer and closer to his climax that I nearly miss the fact that I’m at the brink of my own. It comes upon me too late to give warning; suddenly my gut is clenching and I’m coming, body shuddering as I ejaculate into his mouth. I pull my own off his erection lest I clamp down in my orgasm, hands gripping it instead as the wave of climax pulses through me. “Sorry!” I gasp, when I can speak, stars blinding my eyes as my head swims. 

He makes a sound of negation (apology unnecessary, I interpret) and continues licking at my penis as semen continues dribbling out, the wave receding. When I trust myself again, I resume sucking at John with renewed energy, determined to make his climax every bit as good, and it’s only a moment before he’s saying my name and breathing hard on my inner thigh before his body jerks, then floods my mouth with his release. Was expecting it, manage not to choke, though some of it escapes the corner of my mouth and slips down my neck and onto my collarbone. Have been given to understand through the vagaries of internet research that swallowing is considered more polite. (Did John swallow? Not sure – no, he must have; my penis was in his mouth the entire time.) His erection pulses twice more and then he’s kissing my testicles and thighs and breathing my name onto my sensitive skin. 

Am utterly sated, but John turns himself around after a moment so that we’re facing again, bringing his mouth back to mine. We kiss for a long moment and I can taste both myself and him, mingled on our tongues. (Interesting.) “That was really good,” John says fervently, after. “We’ll have to do that again. It was a bit challenging upside down like that – you’ll have to let me do it for you the regular way sometime, too.”

“I doubt I’ll resist,” I say, much more relaxed on this side of it. “That was – ”

“What?” John prods. “Did you like it?”

“Evidently,” I say, a touch dry, but honesty – or his hopeful eyes, perhaps – prompt me to say more. “It was one of the very best things I’ve ever felt. I didn’t know it would be that good.”

John smiles and kisses me again. (Clearly I said the correct thing, then.) “There’s so much to try,” he murmurs again, lips still touching mine. “But we need to figure out this meeting business, yeah?”

Meeting. (Moriarty! Of course!) I open my eyes, unaware that I had closed them. “Yes,” I say, grasping after my focus. “Of course. Seven o’clock on the roof of the Crowne Plaza. That’s what my message said.”

“Mine said the same,” John says. “Do you think it’s a trap?”

It’s difficult to shrug lying on the floor. “It’s possible. I told Mycroft, though. We’ll have back-up.”

“What do you think he intends to do?” John asks, curious. “I mean, if he just wanted to kill us, he’s had all this time. He could have just had a letter bomb delivered to us both. Obviously he knows where and how to find us.”

“It’s something more than that,” I say. “He may still want to kill us, but he would always want to witness it. I don’t know. Perhaps he has something to say. Have you got your gun?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Bring it.”

John stirs himself, then sits up, reaching for his pants. “You know which Crowne Plaza he means? There are a few of them.”

I watch him dressing himself, thinking vaguely that I should do the same. “The one near Bart’s, I assumed.”

John stops, then nods. “Yes. Of course. It’s sort of a significant spot for all three of us, isn’t it? I suppose I should be a bit nervous about him getting you onto a rooftop again.”

I smile slightly and shake my head. “It was I who chose the location last time,” I remind him. “We’ll be all right. I’ll have you. You’ll have me. And we’ll have Mycroft.”

John gets to his feet and holds out a hand to pull me to mine. When I’m standing, he moves closer and kisses me again, his shirt and jeans still open, the button of the latter pressing uncomfortably into my stomach as he presses himself against me. “No jumping this time,” he says after, mouth still on mine. 

“No jumping,” I agree, eyes closed. “Promise.”

“Good.” John kisses me again, then moves away. “Best get dressed, then. We’ve got a criminal mastermind to go and see.”

***

The door to the roof is unlocked when we get there and no alarms go off. We are in the correct place, then. Yet the rooftop is deserted as we emerge cautiously, looking around. John didn’t need to work all that hard to convince me to bring the Browning L91A and he’s got his own piece tucked down the back of his jeans. I’ve never found guns particularly interesting, but the thought of John with one – it’s John, not the weapon. John in full-blown soldier/defence mode. It’s unbearably sexy. (Wonder if he’s got a tyre lever down his trousers, too. No: focus.) 

It’s a bit windy. From the roof the Thames and Bart’s hospital are both plainly visible, not to mention most of the rest of London. Where is Moriarty? We’re a bit early (wanted to get here first if possible), but he’s nowhere to be seen. 

John glances at me, face reflecting the same thoughts. “Let’s get to the middle, so that we’re not cornered. Or crowded toward an edge.”

Ever the military strategist. No wonder he was made captain. “Good idea,” I say, and we go to stand there, back-to-back, alert for any movement. Not sure where Mycroft’s people have positioned themselves, but it will be somewhere close. Probably another rooftop somewhere, if he’s bringing helicopters. 

The door opens. We both turn, John instinctively stepping slightly ahead of me to shield me, gun raised. It’s Mary. She’s wearing her bright red coat and holding a gun close to her leg. She stops, looking at us. John doesn’t lower his gun. “What are you doing here?” he asks warily, and if he’s startled by her presence, it doesn’t show. 

Mary pushes her hair out of her eyes. “What am _I_ doing here? What are _you_ doing here?” When John doesn’t respond immediately, she adds with irritation, “Can you stop pointing that at me?”

John doesn’t move. “Answer the question.” His voice is hard. 

Mary sighs and rolls her eyes. “I was invited. Why are _you_ here?” John stares back at her, stone-faced, and she says pointedly, “I answered your question. Fair is fair.”

“We were invited, too,” John says, voice carefully neutral. 

“‘We’?” Mary repeats, eyes flicking to me. Her expression puts me in mind of a cobra, still and poised to strike if necessary. 

“Yeah.” John is unperturbed. “Sherlock and I. ‘We’. We both received invitations as well. And I think you know who they came from.”

Mary stares back at him, seemingly unable to come up with a good response to this. She shoots me an evil look, then takes a few steps forward. “John, look…”

Behind her the door creaks. “That’s far enough,” a familiar voice says, before its owner comes into sight. Mocking. Almost jovial. “You can stop right there,” he adds, and then the door opens fully and James Moriarty steps out. He looks the same as ever: black designer suit, possibly Armani, black wool pea coat. Wing-tipped polished leather shoes. 

Mary freezes, eyes on John’s. It could be defiance or it could be a silent plea; the look is unclear. Perhaps she herself hasn’t decided which it is. 

“Hi,” Moriarty says to me, that casual sing-song still there in his voice, though this time I notice that there’s something different about his voice. It’s gravelly, not as smooth as it used to be. 

I frown and raise the gun. “What do you want?”

“That’s it? No hello?” Moriarty rasps. “I think I’m disappointed.” He sounds like he has a bad case of laryngitis. I wonder at this. “No wondering how I survived?” He gestures vaguely behind himself in the direction of Bart’s hospital. “You can see it from here, Sherlock. The place where everyone thought we both died. Turns out you’re a better liar than I thought. But not the best. There’s someone on this rooftop who out-lies both of us – sorry, Dr Watson, but you’re not even in the running. You’re much too honest. Oh, I know you lied to your wife about how you always felt about Sherlock, but that’s not quite in our leagues, I’m afraid. Speaking of which. We all know who that is.” There’s a gun in his hand all of a sudden, a pistol. He wouldn’t need anything stronger at this range, though. “Ms Mary Morstan – is that what they’re calling you these days?”

Mary’s jaw clenches. “Mary Watson, actually.”

Moriarty laughs at this, and even his laugh is rough and grating. He seems to find it genuinely funny, his eyes coming to mine as though to share the joke. I don’t smile, my face implacable. “Mary Watson. That’s terrific. Drop the gun.” Mary doesn’t move. Moriarty’s humour fades. “Drop it, or I’ll shoot now. I mean it. And you know me. You know how much I mean that.” Mary closes her eyes and lets the gun fall. “Now kick it away,” Moriarty instructs her. She does it, looking angry enough to spit nails. “Go and stand by your husband and his lover and turn around.” 

Mary comes over to us, glaring fiercely at John but not saying anything. 

“Oh, that’s right, you didn’t know yet,” Moriarty adds, as though musing to himself. “Sorry!” he sings out. “That’s a bit awkward – really quite awkward, awfully awkward, isn’t it?” He begins to laugh again. “Sorry Johnny-boy, but you’ve got a little something on your collar. Something I suspeeeeeect isn’t yours…”

I glance at John’s collar, showing above his open jacket collar and see it, too, a telltale whitish stain that must have come from his mouth or possibly my collarbones when he pressed himself to me when he was dressed and I wasn’t. How Moriarty could spot that from there is anyone’s guess, but that’s rather beside the point at this juncture. John flushes and steadfastly refuses to look at Mary, a metre to his left. 

“What do you want?” Mary asks tersely of Moriarty. “What are you doing here?”

“ _That’s_ a good question, isn’t it?” Moriarty sounds insincerely interested. “Awfully good question. In fact, that’s rather the money question, wouldn’t you say? Given that you did everything in your power to keep me from being here?”

Mary’s mouth tightens and she doesn’t respond. 

John’s gun is still in his hand but lowered. Mine is still aimed steadily at Moriarty. “What is going on here?” I ask evenly. 

“Should have a little story time, kids?” The words are playful but the tone isn’t. (What is wrong with his voice? Is he ill?) Moriarty strikes me as far grimmer than he was the last time we met, where he appeared to be manic, possibly depressive, but still taking perverse glee in his arrangements, in my imminent demise. At our first meeting he was more playful still, though it varied wildly between his cold-eyed threats and sudden outbursts. Now the playfulness is all but gone. What has happened to him? He’s thinner, too, though he was never a large man. The weight loss exacerbates the dark pits of his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks. None of us have responded to his question and suddenly his temper flares. “Hands up!” he barks, the pistol moving back and forth over all three of us. “Who wants to hear a story?”

John glances at me and we both raise our free hands. Mary sighs through her nose and puts a hand in the air, too. 

That seems to mollify him. “Good,” he says, though he sounds peevish. “You should want to know. Especially _you_ ,” he says to John. “You should want to know what your little wife did to me. She’s a monster, Dr Watson. Best stay away. But you already know that, don’t you? Did you like the little videos I sent you all? That help make it easier for you, Johnny boy?”

John doesn’t rise to the bait, steadily return Moriarty’s dark gaze. 

“The videos were very clever,” I offer. “I notice you’re using your right hand for your pistol. You used to be left-handed.”

“That comes later in the story,” Moriarty complains. “Don’t get ahead, Sherlock.”

“Apologies,” I say dryly. 

His eyes go to Mary. “What about you? Did you like that little video I sent you last night?”

A muscle in Mary’s jaw moves. “I didn’t get any videos.”

“Li-aaaar,” Moriarty sings, rasping. “I get a notification when the emails have been read. You see what I mean, Dr Watson? I sent your wife a little video of you leaving Baker Street last night. You’re smiling like it’s the best day of your life – and walking a little crooked. Maybe ‘Mary’ here doesn’t know what that means, but let me tell you, I certainly do. I walked like that after my first time, too.” The laughter has evaporated from his tone again, and his eyes cut back to Mary. “But your wife took that from me.”

John’s lips press themselves together and I don’t know what he’s filtering. Mary is resolutely silent, so I decide to move things along. “I want to hear the story,” I say, careful to guard my tone, keep him calm. “Tell us how you survived.”

“I don’t like talking with guns pointed at me,” he says petulantly. “Put your guns away and I’ll tell you.”

“You never used to mind,” I observe. “And you’ve got a gun, yourself. We’re at an impasse.”

“If I don’t want to hear the story, can I go?” Mary asks, sounding bored.

“NO!” Moriarty screams, his face suddenly demonic in one of those bizarre flashes he always used to have. He recovers quickly, rubbing at his own throat with the back of his left hand as though the shout caused him pain. “No,” he repeats, much softer. “I want to see your husband’s face when he hears what you did to me. How you betrayed me. Killed my lover and left me to die.”

Mary crosses her arms and looks away, unable or unwilling to meet his eyes. I interject again. “What happened? I want to hear this. How did you survive that day at Bart’s hospital? I saw you shoot yourself. What happened?”

His eyes go to the guns again. “I hate telling stories under duress, it ruins the mood,” he complains. “Can’t we all just put them away? I’m outnumbered. My two best snipers are either dead or turned on me. I’m here alone. You’ve got two guns and _her_ , even unarmed.”

I look at John. He shrugs as if to say _your call_. “How about this,” I propose. “You and I will put our guns away but John will keep his out, but he won’t point it at you. Just to keep – everyone safe,” I improvise. I nod toward Mary. “From her.”

That seems to appease him as much as it angers Mary. “Okay,” Moriarty says, sounding like a small child. “That could work.”

“You go first,” John says, not budging. 

Moriarty lifts his hands in mock surrender and puts the gun into the pocket of his coat. I put mine into the inside pocket of mine. “So: tell us,” I say. “What really happened that day?”

“You could have heard this story over a year ago,” Moriarty says, looking at Mary again. “She could have told you all along. _She_ knows. I never shot myself, Sherlock. That was just to make you jump, doofus. I shot a blank and drugged myself to keep myself still. To convince you I was dead. After you jumped, Jennifer here and Sebastian Moran, my right hand man, my partner, came to get me. Their instructions were to bring a body that looked like me, put a mask on it, then put another mask on my face in case they were seen with me, take me to a hotel – this hotel – and let me recover and disappear on my own. Sebastian knew where I was going but he had orders not to follow. I needed to make it look like you had killed Rich Brook so that no one would doubt your suicide. Took me almost six months to realise you’d faked yours, too, and then I couldn’t track you down. Mind, I had some problems of my own. Didn’t I?” he adds with vitriol in Mary’s direction. 

She’s still looking away, sullen and unresponsive. 

Moriarty nods at her, still speaking to John and I. “Once they got me to the room, she shot Sebastian. Right about here,” he says, indicating a spot just to the right of the centre of his chest. (Exactly where she shot me. The irony.) “And with him lying there, dying, watching, she poisoned me. Cyanide is vicious. It was soaked into the mask, which I couldn’t get off my face when I came to and realised I couldn’t breathe, that I was dying. My left hand was clawing at my face but she glued the mask down. My left hand was exposed for too long. Sebastian managed to call emergency services. It was the last thing he did before he died. He saved my life.” He stops speaking and swallows. 

I feel slightly sick. I trade another brief look with John; he appears to feel the same way. “How did you survive?” John asks. “Emergency services must have been really quick.”

“Someone in the hotel came first,” Moriarty says. His eyes slide to Mary again. “By the time they arrived, he was dead, Jennifer,” he spits. “They didn’t know who he was, so they sent him to the police morgue. I don’t even know where he was buried. And me – they didn’t know who I was, either. They injected an antidote but they didn’t know it was in the mask, that it _was_ a mask. I’m wearing layers of foundation or you’d still see the marks it left on my skin. With the cyanosis came extensive nerve damage. I spent over a year in rehab in Scotland, some tiny place in a town where no one knew who I was. It was so _boring_. But I had to learn to use my right hand for everything, and the speech therapy took much longer than that. I couldn’t even say my own name after it. Still can’t use my left for much of anything. Can barely write. I can text but it takes so long with one hand. The fingers of my left hand don’t move at all any more. I can’t talk for all that long. I have all sorts of prescriptions. You’d love it, Sherlock.”

Mary studies her fingernails. “You could have just done us all a favour and died,” she says, disgusted. 

“I nearly did,” Moriarty says. He’s cold, those dark eyes dead in his skull-like face. “But you buried me in a shallow grave, and I clawed my way out of it again, with one purpose. I wanted to find you, find what had become of you. I can guess why you did it – you thought that when I disappeared, you’d do the same thing. You’d got tired of the life and wanted out. And sure enough, when I finally tracked you down again, you’d carved out a pretty little life for yourself, didn’t you? Nice little _job_ in a clinic, nice little flat in the suburbs, got a baby on the way. How _precious_. Nice collection of accounts with your millions stored away – betcha John doesn’t know about those, does he? You weren’t going to share that, were you? And nice little soldier-doctor to keep as your pet. Pity about his pesky best friend, though. Heard you shot him just like you shot Sebastian. Slowly. Painfully. Long enough to bleed out. You could have just shot him in the head, but that would have been too merciful, wouldn’t it?” He sounds tearful and I’m fairly certain he’s talking about Moran now, not me. He’s unbalanced, emotionally unstable. He always was, but he always seemed to be able to control it to his advantage in the past. Now he seems like a frail shadow of the man he was. Almost like Richard Brook. 

John, meanwhile, can’t contain himself any more. “So you _did_ mean to kill him,” he says to Mary, his voice full of anger. “I knew it. I fucking knew it.”

“Apparently I should have, as Jim says, just shot him in the head,” Mary says sarcastically. “Maybe _that_ would have finally made you stop wanting to suck his cock.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I just did precisely that,” John tells her coolly, nastily. “And it was fantastic. God, I can’t believe I ever loved you. _How_ did I not see what you were right from the start?”

Mary’s eyes are heavy-lidded, unimpressed. She puts a hand on her belly in a not-so-subtle reminder of exactly how much John is still tied to her and how, and says, “You do realise that you’re playing directly into his hands, don’t you? This is exactly what he wants.”

“I don’t – _care_ ,” John says forcefully. “He’s right: you are a monster.”

“ _You_ married me,” Mary reminds him. “What does that say about you, then?”

“That I was an idiot for far too long,” John says firmly. “I love Sherlock. I always have and I always will. I’m just glad to know the truth, finally. Not that you ever would have given it to me. But it makes things a lot clearer.”

“Doesn’t it just,” Moriarty puts in, sounding immensely satisfied. His voice is still rough and I think of him having used a distorter for his return broadcast, modulating his voice at various pitches – and hiding its weakness. 

“Why?” I ask him. “What’s this all about? Why did you want John and I here for this little confrontation? John already knew about Mary, or whoever she really is. And she already had her suspicions that their marriage was coming to an end. What’s the end game here?”

“The end game,” Moriarty repeats, staring at me. “The end game, Sherlock Holmes, is to ruin the lives of the people who took everything away from me. You and _her_. She poisoned and nearly killed me, killed my lover, then while I was recovering, you and your bloody brother dismantled my entire global network over those two years. By the time I even started to catch up with you, it was too late. I couldn’t find you and you’d disbanded or imprisoned most of my people. Unfair advantage, when your opponent is in a hospital in a wretched little town that doesn’t even have a proper pub, trying to learn to write his own name again.”

“It’s not a game,” I say, staring at him. “People like you need to be stopped. I stopped you. I did what I had to do to end your organisation and save my friends. That’s all.”

“It was my entire life.” His eyes are fathoms deep and black as the night, fixed on mine. “For that alone, I should kill you. But it was my own employee who made that all possible. What I’d really like is for all of you to kill each other – and she very nearly made that happen, but you had to go and wiggle your way out of a proper death yet again. It’s infuriating of you, Sherlock, it really is. Why can’t you just die? Dr Watson here is really only good as a pawn – anyone who wears his heart so obviously all over both sleeves, his front, back, and arse is easy enough to manipulate. Just tell him that you’re in danger and watch him run. Worked the night I abducted him, all those years ago. Didn’t it, Dr Watson.”

John raises his gun and levels it at Moriarty’s face again. “Go to hell,” he says angrily. 

I put a hand on his shoulder in warning. “You underestimate him over and over again,” I tell Moriarty. “You both do. You always have. But you will not use Mary or I to get to John ever again. This game is over. I see what you are now: you’re broken and desperate and out for revenge. I can sympathise. However, it’s finished. You’re no threat to anyone any more. Stop watching us. My brother and the MI5 will deal with Mary. You can walk away.”

Moriarty shakes his head. “That’s awfully nice, Sherlock,” he says, devoid of sincerity. He clears his throat as though that will make his voice function properly again and turns so that he’s facing Mary directly. “You took everything from me, everything that mattered, or made it possible for Sherlock to,” he says quietly. “I came back to do the same thing to you. Looks like you already did a lot of the damage yourself, what with some of the stupid decisions you’ve made. Threatening Magnussen right under Sherlock’s nose. He would have found out. He’s way smarter than you. You’re no match for him. And that’s why you never could have got away with this.”

Mary’s nostrils flare in anger. “If he hadn’t been in the building, he never would have found out,” she retorts. “And he never would have got himself shot, either.”

Moriarty shakes his head as though she hasn’t spoken. “You’ll find your blood money accounts have been drained. If you really wanted a clean break, you should have given back the money, Jennifer. You don’t get to keep that. You’ve already lost John, and you’re less than a minute from losing the only other thing you care about, too.”

I shoot John a concerned look; he must mean the baby. “Moriarty,” I say, withdrawing the revolver again, “whatever you’re thinking of, don’t. We have people close by. You’ll never get out alive.”

“You think I care about that?” Moriarty asks. His eyes are empty and cold. “You’re right, Sherlock Holmes. I’m a broken man. And broken men are dangerous.” He turns back to Mary. “Usually I don’t like getting my hands dirty, but my best sniper is dead and my second best betrayed and tried to kill me. It’s personal this time. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it, too. It just doesn’t work like that. Say goodbye, Mary Morstan.” 

Mary opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, a shot rings out. I never saw Moriarty withdraw the pistol again, but it’s there in his hand and smoking. Two more shots follow and Mary falls to her knees, clutching at her stomach. A fourth shot puts her flat on her back. There is no doubt in my mind that she is dead – she and the baby both; three holes are gushing from her protruding abdomen. Before John or I can react, suddenly the air fills with gunfire. (Of course Moriarty lied about being here alone.) I seize John’s arm and drag him toward the only cover in sight, a large metal duct curving up out of the roof. It’s not much but it’s better than being out in the open. I shout into the microphone pinned inside my coat collar as we run. Where are the shots coming from? We crouch behind the duct and John points. “There,” he says, pointing in the direction of Bart’s. Of course. Should have known. “Sherlock – Moriarty – the baby – ”

“ _No_ ,” I say fiercely, grabbing his arm to keep him from jumping out to shoot Moriarty. “Mycroft and the medics are about to land. If you go out there, they’ll kill you. And that’s exactly what Moriarty wants anyway, for you or I to kill him and then get killed, ourselves. You heard him; he has nothing left to live for except revenge on the woman who betrayed him. He wants for one of us to kill him and for both of us to die. _Don’t_ give it to him. It’s too late for Mary.” I realise I’m pleading, nearly begging. “Don’t go out there. Don’t do what I did with Magnussen. We got a second chance at being together. If you go out there, you’ll be shot.”

John struggles in my grasp for a second, then gives in. His eyes, though. “The baby,” he says dully, sagging into my side. “He shot her in the stomach.”

I can’t respond to this; I know it’s true. Three shots to the abdomen – the fetus won’t have survived that. My mouth is open but nothing convincing or true comes to mind to say. John looks away and I feel as though I’ve failed him again. 

My brother’s voice crackles in the earpiece I’m wearing. “First sniper is down. The medics are landing now. And Moriarty seems to be down.”

“Good,” I snap. “Hurry on the medics! It’s the baby.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says warningly, knowing that only I can hear it. “You know it’s too late.”

John looks at me, questioning, and I shake my head. The gunfire stops; instead it’s the beat of helicopter propellers filling the air now. Two of them land on the roof, an unmarked black one (MI5, clearly) and a white medical one. John and I stand and emerge in time to see Moriarty’s corpse being lifted into the black chopper. “What?” John says, sounding confused. “Who shot him?”

“Sniper,” one of the agents says simply. “Looks like he got caught in the cross-fire. Or was double-crossed.”

 _Again_ he could have said, if he’d known. Or, I wonder privately, perhaps they were following orders: if his actions hadn’t goaded John or I into shooting him and consequently taking the blame for his death, perhaps his agents had been ordered to make it look like an accident. He was broken and almost powerless. He didn’t intend to survive this confrontation. 

John has turned away, walking over to Mary’s body. Her eyes are open and blank, staring into the sky. There is a single round bullet hole in the centre of her forehead, blood pooling all over the concrete beneath her head. Definitely dead. A medic is kneeling over her, a stethoscope pressed to her belly. He sits back after a moment and shakes his head and John. “I’m very sorry,” he says, and John turns away, reaching for me blindly. 

I put my arms around him, wordless. (What is there to say to something like this? Nothing. He won’t want trite, pointless clichés.) He sounds as though he can barely breathe and it pains me physically, as though his pain is my own. A third helicopter lands and my brother steps out after a moment. He takes in the scene, speaks to the agents who have Moriarty’s body, then comes over to survey Mary’s. They’re lifting her onto a body board and one of the medics closes her eyes. Mycroft meets my eyes and shuts off the microphone connection. He looks at John and raises his eyebrows and I scowl slightly. No, don’t try talking to him _now_ , for God’s sake. Mycroft takes my hint and goes to speak quietly to the medics instead. Perhaps they’ll extract the infant so that John can bury it – her – separately, and properly. Who knows what he’ll want done with Mary, precisely. Not the time to ask. Mycroft can sort it out. 

“It’s over,” John says into my shoulder. “Jesus, Sherlock. I never meant it to end like that.”

“It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

I say it over and over again, and John’s arms tighten around me and he weeps. I close my eyes and hold him and everything else dims around us. Nothing else exists for me but him. 

***

The next few weeks are difficult, but somehow we make it through them. John goes through the motions of holding (separate) funerals for Mary and the baby and we attend both. Janine is the only other person at the bare bones memorial service he arranged for Mary and she leaves without speaking to either of us when it’s finished. The baby’s funeral is worse. More people, too many for John. He endures it with the same unyielding stoicism and strength that he brings to everything else and we leave as early as is decent. For the next several days I give him as much space as he wants and hope that he’ll come to me when he’s ready to be with other people again. He doesn’t leave physically, but he’s not present in every other respect. It’s a shell-shocked outline of him sitting in his chair or at the kitchen table, eating food that I prepare and set before him. He spends the first three nights upstairs in his old bedroom. The fourth night we’re watching the news on the sofa, John leaning against my shoulder. The adverts are on and he says, eyes still on the television, “Thought I’d sleep down here tonight. If it’s all right.”

I turn my head and look down at him, but he’s still looking straight ahead. “Of course,” I say. “It’s always all right.”

He talks about the baby that night, curled against me, speaking to my chest. How he’d never wanted kids and the guilt he feels now for having felt that way. How he should have told Mary to get out of there for their daughter’s sake when she first appeared on the roof.

“John. You know she wouldn’t have gone. That was the risk she chose to take.”

“She had no right to,” John says fiercely. “She had a responsibility for that life. And…” he fumbles for the words. “I don’t know how it would have worked, but I could have had a hand in helping raise her. Done joint custody or something. I don’t know.”

“But you never really wanted to.”

His admission is very quiet. “No. Not really. And that makes me feel ten times worse. Because I got exactly what _I_ wanted, didn’t I? I wanted a chance to erase every wrong decision I’ve made since I met Mary. How can I possibly not feel guilty over having got exactly that?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him, and press a kiss into his hair.

“I never wanted anyone to die.”

“Neither did I,” I say into his hair.

He fell asleep that way, arm draped over my chest, and I lay awake listening to him breathe. I’d never slept with anyone before. It was very pleasant, if strange. After that night, he stayed, and the next day he started being more physically demonstrative again, passing me a cup of tea and surprising me with a swift but lingering kiss with it at breakfast, and again when I came home from the store later on. That night we went to bed earlier than usual. 

Now, three weeks later, he seems almost his usual self again. We had a case, an interesting one, and that helped distract him. It finished last night, and he was particularly enthusiastic in bed afterward. (Can still feel the slight ache and don’t mind it in the slightest.) John pours me a cup of tea and allows me to pull him down for a kiss. He comes willingly, putting the teapot down and even settles into my lap, lips and tongue pressing into mine. After several long minutes of this, he leans his forehead against mine, smiling. “It really is perfect, you know,” he says. 

“That kiss? Or…?” I don’t want to put words in his mouth. 

“No, although it’s also true of the kiss. I meant all of it. This. Life with you. This was what I always wanted. I just… hid it away and tried to forget it. Bury it with you. But it was always there.”

I remember what Moriarty said about Mary having buried him in a shallow grave. “Yes,” I say. “Perhaps it was.”

“I know it was,” John says, kissing me again, lightly. Then again, longer. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, be able to take for granted – having John here, like this. Being able to kiss him, touch him, knowing that he won’t go “home”, to some other place that isn’t here at the end of the day. I kiss back without reservation and pull him more solidly onto my legs. He responds by twisting around to straddle my lap, elbows resting on my shoulders as we kiss, fingers tangling in my hair. He seems to love touching my hair and I love when he does it. It’s horridly sentimental but after having spent so long not having had this, or watching him actively loving someone else, I’m not even trying to hold back, resist it. The only time Mycroft forced me to discuss it, he wasn’t nearly as reproving as I expected; merely commenting that the ‘honeymoon phase’ would wear off soon enough. He expressed his own opinion that I’d certainly wanted it for long enough. He’d always known, of course. 

“John,” I say, not opening my eyes. 

“Mmm?”

“You’re sure you’re happy with all this? You wouldn’t… change anything? No regrets?”

John goes still and I open my eyes. He looks very serious. “What’s this about, then?”

Shrug. “Just… checking.”

His thumbs stroke over my cheekbones. “Do _you_ have any regrets? Are you happy with this?”

He already has my entire heart in his possession. I cannot shield anything from him, even if I wanted to. “So happy it frightens me,” I say, starkly honest. 

John’s eyebrows move up in the centre, his entire face going soft and filling with the fierce tenderness I’ve come to recognise. “Oh, Sherlock,” he murmurs. “I know. I know exactly how you feel. But don’t you think we’ve paid for this? Waited long enough to have it? You have me now. It’s not going to change. I’m not going anywhere. And no: I don’t have a single fucking regret. I love you. I love this. And as far as I’m concerned, you’ll have me forever, if you think you’ll want me for that long.”

“I do,” I say instantly. “Always, John.”

He smiles one of those smiles that could bring down an empire, breaking and rebuilding my heart all over again in under a second. “Then you have me,” he says. “That’s as much vow as I need from you, unless you want to do it officially. Personally, I can live without getting married again. But I would, if you wanted me to.”

“Not necessary,” I say quietly. “That’s enough for me, too.”

“Then it’s said and done,” John says simply. “You’re stuck with me.” He smiles again and kisses me before I can respond. And as ever, everything else seems to disappear when we’re together, his mouth firm and strong and infinitely tender on mine, his hands in my hair and on my face. We both hear the toaster when it goes, though, John starting slightly. “Oh. I’ll get that.”

He does, bringing the toast back and inserting himself back into my lap to eat it. It’s ridiculous and possibly quite juvenile and if Mrs Hudson were to come upstairs and catch us at it, she would coo and clutch her hands together to no end (horrible), but at the moment I really don’t care. We’re laughingly feeding each other toast and it’s such a stark contrast from our lives two months ago when I shot Magnussen and thought I was leaving for a very short one-way trip to Serbia, leaving John behind with Mary, my heart dying somewhere on that tarmac as I let go of his hand, that I really _can’t_ seem to begrudge myself – or him – this. Not when we both want it so much – wanted it for so long and finally have it at last. He’s here now, and has just said that he always will be. And I will never leave him or let him down again. It’s as much a promise to myself as it is to him. 

Because he’s finally here to stay. 

*

**Author's Note:**

> Clarice82 created art for this, commissed by sradanvers! It's here: http://clarice82.tumblr.com/post/93143670582/johnlock-commission-for-silentauror-from-my-dear


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